I spy a new John Le Carré novel – well, almost

There is a new John Le Carré novel coming. This is cause for much excitement and celebration. It’s not ACTUALLY written by Le Carré. That would be incredible, considering the great man died in 2020. But, in the manner of reimaginings of the work of dead writers, mostly, genre writers – new James Bond adventures, Mr Men books – it is delivered in the style of Le Carré. Actually, this goes further. It is an attempt not just to ape his voice but to be his voice.

The book is by Nick Harkaway. As well as being a celebrated author himself, Harkaway has more right than most to stake a claim on Le Carré’s legacy. He is Le Carré’s son, and he grew up, he writes in the introduction, with George Smiley, that unassuming masterspy hero of Le Carré’s.

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Harkaway apprenticed himself a few years ago by finishing his father’s posthumous novel Silverview and readying it for publication. But that was pitching a tent at base camp. This is the north face of the Eiger.

This, Karla’s Choice, is the missing link between The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He’s not just writing a new John Le Carré book, with a few nods here and there to his father’s work, just enough to keep the fans from grumbling too much. This isn’t some way of cashing in – the spy equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is wrestling a tiger and going so far out on the edge that there will be only complete success or inglorious failure. It has to be correct and absolutely believable. Like the legends so many of Le Carré’s characters carry.

George Smiley must be clearly George Smiley and the breadcrumbs and the threads placed have to be real enough to lead obviously through into Tinker Tailor. 

It’s the origin story for Karla, the head of Moscow Centre, a protagonist who filled so much of Le Carré’s world. And, frankly, the world that so many of us fell for.

I can fake Picasso as well as anyone, Harkaway writes on an intro page, an epithet attributed to Picasso. Which is a curious decision, one that makes it clear of the esteem in which he holds his father, while, oddly, somewhat questioning his father’s work and also leaving Harkaway a hostage to fortune. So… you think you’re THAT good.

It’s a great book, completely consumable. It has John Le Carré’s dash, that odd ability to immediately hook you into a world that should be alien but immediately feels familiar and one that you just want to stay in. You can smell the Circus and its closed dank rooms in 1963. The book understands that what Le Carré was doing, what the best of great world genre writers like him and Simenon and Ambler and Matsumoto did, was not simply tell stories, but create worlds, into which we link and sink forever.

There may be moments when you think it’s not quite Le Carré. But they are fleeting. If anybody, even someone as accomplished and immersed as Harkaway, could write as uniquely as his father did in that opening section in Tinker Tailor, when Prideaux first arrives at Thursgood’s, then Le Carré would not be at the don.

And why, you may reasonably ask, does this matter?

Because there is a need to find the other, to sometimes save us from the murk.

When the reality closes, as it will, and the world looks dark, there has to be balance. Or we’d all be a little lost.

For now, the balance, for me, is coming with a book about spies. And, oh boy, I’m very happy. 

Paul McNamee is editor of the Big Issue. Read more of his columns here. Follow him on Twitter.

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