A Legacy of Spies Book Reviews

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Horrid Slow Going. Ugh. . . This book is a painful slog.

A Legacy of Spies. A happy and haunting return to the Circus world. As ever, filled with the style and guile that places le Carre atop the list of awaited and favorite reads. Please let there be more.

A Legacy of Spies. Tedious at first then worth the wait.

A Legacy of Spies. We are led to believe that this is another of the George Smiley books that have thrilled us in past years and yet Smiley barely makes an appearance. Legacy of Spies is basically a Peter Guillame story with the old Circus characters making very brief appearances. Le Carre seems to aim for a complex storyline that unfortunately ends up in a muddle and without resolution. All the old names are dropped but nothing is resolved. This book is not worthy of the larger than life characters we encountered in the original trilogy and it's a pity.

Couldn’t finish it. Seldom can I not finish a book once I purchase it, but it happened with this one. I saw the author on “60 Minutes” and he was an interesting guy, so I read the sample on the book store and enjoyed it. Within a few pages after the sample the plot became muddled. I couldn’t remember who was who (what team they were one, good guy or bad guy) or where the book was going. Disappointing. Save your money.

Disappointing. As an espionage novel devotee, and le Carre in particular, this comes off as a throwaway. Typically great plot and dialogue... right up until the point where all's supposed to tie together, make sense, and fade to black. This just suddenly goes black. When the building tension finally results in a lurch towards resolution, the author just quits. We're supposed to believe that the master dissembler of the Cold War, who finally makes an appearance 10 pages from the end, will just drop everything and "take care of things"...? I'm afraid it feels like a cop out. Surely le Carre doesn't just need the money at this point...?

Great but for one flaw.. The greatest aspect of the novel is having our Peter G. all to ourselves as an intimate narrator. The amazing thing is the voice is absolutely familiar, even though we never heard it directly before. Viewing the full sweep of Circus history was also a delight. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about then the book is not for you— yet. You first need to read ALL the George Smiley novels. That in itself is worth it. ) The flaw I think is the end. OK I confess that I haven’t loved all of Le Carre’s ends, but they always seemed aesthetically impressive— even if you weren’t going to hang it in your living room. But in this case, it seemed like he just got tired and needed a quick wrap up. Along with a veiled anti-Brexit dig. (I had no idea George was a so pro-Europe all these years. Hmmm. )

Still Amazing. I have always thought that LeCarre was the best English prose writer of our time. He hasn’t missed a beat with his latest. The Smiley character is one of the greats of literature. His writing is like poetry.

Very Disappointing. A fan of the author and genre, but unfortunately this was extremely disappointing.

tDGlobal. With all due respect the author would be best served putting the pen down and finding peace. The art left him long ago, this was terribly boring, impossible to follow and grossly over rated. It was awful and I can't imagine why I read it other than the Lacarre name and shame on me!

Solid, but not his best. I think this book was well worth reading, but it's not one of John Le Carre's best. I wish he leave the cold war behind and write about current affairs.

Excellent. Great follow up to previous Smiley novels, this time with his assistant as main character and only a brief appearance at the end. Great read!

Classic. Made the Cold War come alive.

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Like a visit with old friends. Le Carres gorgeous prose and the juxtaposition of modern sensibilities upon Cold War paranoia make for a great read

"In those days of yesteryear...". After 25+ post-Cold-War years straining to help us adjust to the more complicated naughts & crosses of international morality, with rather equivocal novels about less frightening (and less existential) clashes of kinda-good versus kinda-evil, John le Carre suddenly invites us to sit back, tense up, and gorge on the familiar comfort food of The Circus & The Commies. The old gang back together--or, more accurately, the old gang in flashback to the time before the lot got broken up by death, betrayal, ambiguity, and irrelevance. Here's ol' Jim Prideaux! And Connie Sachs! Toby Esterhase, Percy Alleline...and--my heavens!--is that YOU, Control? It IS the doomed grey eagle himself, full of bitter ruthless genius effectively implied if not exactly voiced. Wow! Watch 'em spy! Of course, the guy for whom we are really pining is here too, polishing his glasses with his tie (sigh, enough with the tie/glasses tic, we get it, we get it): George Smiley. And, as he began to do in "Tinker, Tailor..." le Carre chooses to give us Smiley through the point-of-view eyes of his acolyte Peter Guillam. In fact, Guillam is the on-stage male lead of the novel. He's the one in (supposed) danger, he's the one with the (supposed) secrets & the Magic Decoder Ring to make sense of the (supposedly) horrific revelations. Or something like that. Therein lies my disappointment with "A Legacy of Spies." See, I never really cared much for Peter Guillam. I felt I was SUPPOSED TO care for the comely young stud, because the author obviously liked him tremendously & expected me to follow the obvious signs that Peter was just so cool & clever & admirable. Well...I kinda faked a mild enthusiasm for the fish, out of deference to my idol Smiley, who was tolerantly stuck with him. But here I lost my concern 20 pages in, and never recovered anything but my historic fatigue with PG. It is nevertheless a big-bag-of-crisps pleasure to hang around with the crew (especially old fave Oliver Mendel!) as they rumble through what is essentially an explanation of "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold." Yay! Go, Brits! Die, Commies! One knows what happens/was gonna happen/happened, so the only true suspense is whether or not Guillam (and the elusive mastermind Smiley???) will get sued to the last sou by children of dead heroes trying to bring heavy Cold War dues home to the Circus boffins of yore. Then the book ends abruptly. Before we get any resolution to this mild present-day threat to humiliate (yawn) and impoverish (yawn, yawn) Guillam, Smiley, the Crown, whatever. Bang--it's over. I mean, sure, the newly-explained backstory was already over before the exegesis began. But after a few words from Smiley, promising to clear up the present mini-crisis--words I guess we are meant to accept instead of scenes in which Smiley might deliver the implied actions--le Carre is done. And one cannot help feeling the old Circus is done too. Friends of mine who were fanatics of the Star Wars universe had feelings about the recent "The Force Awakens" film: nostalgia, mild excitement at the familiar hope for dangerous importance, but ultimately a half-empty sense of rehashed exploitation. Now, I do not believe John le Carre has an exploitative impulse in his heart & mind (unlike, say, Disney?). He is laying on the comfort food, but it is a luncheon, not a feast. And 20 minutes later, I'm mildly hungry again...but not at all sure I'll want to snack even if he brings ol' George & Peter back in another installment.

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