SEPTEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
The combined performances of author John le Carré and narrator Tom Hollander in this new George Smiley espionage novel are a tour de force to be savored and cherished. Our protagonist is Peter Guillam, who, 40 years on and under interrogation, must revisit the disastrous events of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. We’re back in the morally ambiguous world of Cold War spy craft as Guillam guards the old secrets while fending off doubt. Where is Smiley in this? You’ll see. Hollander expertly channels the tense coiled spring of the Smiley novels, coloring with accent when necessary, using pacing and pauses to keep you from pressing “stop,” and in a warm, even-toned narrative voice, audibly savors every beautiful word. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
[Le Carré's] novels are so brilliant because they’re emotionally and psychologically absolutely true, but of course they’re novels.” —New York Times Book Review
“Le Carré’s prose remains brisk and lapidary. His wit is intact and rolls as if on casters... I might as well say it: to read this simmering novel is to come in from the cold.” —New York Times
“Le Carré is such a gifted storyteller that he interlaces the cards in his deck so they fit not simply with this book, but with the earlier ones as well.” —The Atlantic
"A kind of eulogy for the present as well as the past, A Legacy of Spies is haunting." —Chicago Tribune
"Swift and satisfying." —USA Today
“We wish for more complexity and logic in our politics, so we look to make political art that is logical and complex: a genre defined by John le Carré.” —New Republic
“The spy master’s latest Smiley novel entwines today’s world with a lost one... Ingenious."
—Washington Post
"Intricately plotted and richly satisfying." —Star Tribune
"Gripping."—The Christian Science Monitor
"[Le Carré] can convey a character in a sentence, land an emotional insight in [a] phrase & demolish an ideology in a paragraph." —Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Any reader who knows le Carré's earlier work, and quite a few who don't, will assume that any attempt to second-guess the mandarins of the Service will backfire. The miracle is that the author can revisit his best-known story and discover layer upon layer of fresh deception beneath it.”
—Kirkus
Praise for John le Carré
“One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-man’s land.”
—Los Angeles Times
“No other writer has charted—pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers—the public and secret histories of his times.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“I would suggest immortality for John le Carré, who I believe one of the most intelligent and entertaining writers working today.”
—Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
“The constant flow of emotion lifts le Carré not only above all modern suspense novelists, but above most novelists now practicing.”
—Financial Times
“A writer of towering gifts.”
—The Independent (UK)
SEPTEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
The combined performances of author John le Carré and narrator Tom Hollander in this new George Smiley espionage novel are a tour de force to be savored and cherished. Our protagonist is Peter Guillam, who, 40 years on and under interrogation, must revisit the disastrous events of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. We’re back in the morally ambiguous world of Cold War spy craft as Guillam guards the old secrets while fending off doubt. Where is Smiley in this? You’ll see. Hollander expertly channels the tense coiled spring of the Smiley novels, coloring with accent when necessary, using pacing and pauses to keep you from pressing “stop,” and in a warm, even-toned narrative voice, audibly savors every beautiful word. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
