John Le Carre (I can never figure out how to consistently get the accent mark to work on here, so I’m just not going to worry about it) is kind of a “warm blanket” writer for me. I love his books, especially the George Smiley ones, and I turn to them when I’m a little blue or distraught or as a palate cleanser from a more challenging book. When I saw he had a new book out I was so excited and it did not disappoint.
If you’ve read any of the other books, this one takes a very distinct turn. While all the George Smiley books did show the sometimes unintentional consequences of the clandestine missions carried out at “the Circus,” there was always a feeling that somehow it was all worth it. That this was a dangerous game and while this may be a tragedy, it averted a much larger one. This book deals with what happens when the cold war ends, and those who were affected by these games now want to know what their sacrifice was for, and was it actually worth it.
Peter Guillam, who was George Smiley’s right hand in most of the other novels, is living a quiet retirement on his family farm in Brittany. No one knows who he is and he likes it that way. George has been MIA for years at this point. Then, one day out of the blue, a letter arrives from the Circus. Which is no longer located at the Circus. The children of an agent and a source who died during a clandestine mission in East Germany are suing the British government. They claim that their parents were essentially sent on a suicide mission without their knowledge and that they were, for all intents and purposes, murdered by the British government. To clarify: they are not siblings, the son of the agent met the daughter of the source and together they decided to pursue this with the government. Now, Peter is being called back to answer for the decisions the team made during this operation in the middle of the Cold War. His own department is worried about covering its ass and they want a person to blame. Peter can help them find that person, or he can take the fall himself.
This is a fast read, like most of the others. It is a really interesting twist on the spy formula, though. You don’t often get to see the “hindsight is 20/20” versions of these stories. There aren’t as many dead drops and code cracks, but this is still a great suspense story, Peter needs to figure out who’s on his side and who isn’t, he also needs to figure out if there really was a flaw in the plan. He also rips a lot of band aids off a lot of old wounds. There is also, at the core of it, those very important questions: was it really all as worth it as it seemed at the time? If it was, how do you explain that to a world that no longer holds the same priorities and values to be self-evident? Is moral greyness ever OK? And lastly, why should any of us believe you?
As with most spy books, I don’t want to go too deep into plot, since that’s where the fun is. This was a really good book. I enjoyed it and it makes me want to go back and reread the book that covers the mission they are prosecuting (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold).