Rating: 5/5
Review:
Vintage le Carré
I thought A Legacy Of Spies was excellent. I've not been all that keen on much of le
Carré's post-Cold War output (with a couple of notable exceptions) but this
sees him back to his best I think.
Here, Peter Guillam is called back to account for his and
others' behaviour in a Cold War-era operation as Twenty-First Century standards
are applied by those who were affected and by politicians. It helps to have read both The Spy Who Came In
From The Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in order to understand fully
what has happened here. Guillam narrates
an account of the questioning, his reviewing of documents and his memories of
the time, and I found it riveting. There
is care over tradecraft, genuine humanity and believable characters, all done
in le Carré's beautiful, calm and poised prose.
There are no high-speed chases, nor one-to-one stand-offs in a deserted
location or any other of the standard clichés of the genre, but there is an
atmosphere of real threat and some genuine nerve-tingling suspense.
I see that some other reviewers have found this
sub-standard, but I disagree. I think
this compares with le Carré's best, and he still has the gift of compassionate
human insight. For example, he says of
one old torture victim, "The tortured are a class apart. You can imagine – just – where they have
been, but never what they've brought back." That is of the highest class, I think, and
there's plenty of a similar standard here.
I found this profound and gripping and it's very warmly recommended.
(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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