As it finally hits shelves, what are the critics saying?
The good news is that most of the feedback is very positive – on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the US, Entertainment Weekly gave an A- score, saying: “A Legacy of Spies functions best as a reward for loyal readers.
“This is for those of us who have sat with Smiley for hours as he pored over intel in an office where the blasted radiator is broken and loved every damn second of it.”
USA Today were also enthusiastic, but argued that A Legacy of Spies is not among the writer’s best work.
“One wonders at first why le Carré would bother revisiting territory whose possibilities were realised so successfully 50-odd years ago,” they wrote.
“While A Legacy of Spies may not occupy the upper tier of le Carré’s body of work, it’s as swift and satisfying a read as the book it derives from.
“Through its beloved characters, Legacy also revives old, yet still relevant questions about whether the ‘ends’ compelled by the long-moribund Cold War — or any war — were worth the questionable ‘means.’”
The Guardian made the novel their Book of the Day and said: “A Legacy of Spies – the title suggests more than one meaning – satisfies not only by being vintage Le Carré, which it is, but in the way in which it so neatly and ingeniously closes the circle of the author’s long career.
“The ingenuity and skill with which the thing is brought off is breathtaking – really, not since The Spy has Le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect.”
Newsday called it “astounding”, adding that the publication is “a clever, crystalline, moving voyage back to the settings of his early fiction, excellent on its own merits, stunning when taken in conjunction with that previous work.”