Book review: A Legacy Of Spies, by John Le Carré

Let me say at the outset that this is a truly wonderful, morally complex, politically astute novel written with elegance and panache. Although much trailed as being a return to the characters of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People (although that cast also appeared in other novels), it is, for the most part, a standalone novel – readers unfamiliar with the plots of those works will eagerly want to seek them out afterwards; readers who have long enjoyed and re-read them will get their own especial pleasure from seeing how it fits like a mortise and tenon joint with the previous work. I am obliged to say, however, that it is a devil to review. It would be an act of critical negligence to deny the reader the visceral thrill of its twists and its complexities, its edge-of-the-seat qualities.