Smiley’s spy rejoins the Circus
A LEGACY OF SPIES by John le Carre (Viking £20)
THERE are many pretenders to John le Carre’s crown as master of modern espionage, but, as his 24th novel superbly demonstrates, there is only one le Carre.
Eloquent, subtle and sublimely paced, it returns to his stamping ground, the British Secret Service. Known as ‘the Circus’, it is a world he has detailed meticulously over the past 56 years.
Peter Guillam, right-hand man of the inimitable George Smiley, has retired to his family farm on the Brittany coast. But he is suddenly summoned to London to answer questions about one of the Circus’s most notorious Cold War escapades, the role of Alec Leamas as a double agent sent to infiltrate East Germany in Berlin.
The original story was told in le Carre’s first big success, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, published in 1963, but now, we are shown that tale of deceit and despair through a fresh prism, as the novel weaves past and present to reveal the tragedy at its heart.
Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched, it is a triumph.
CODENAME VILLANELLE by Luke Jennings (John Murray £14.99)
JENNINGS, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has turned his hand to thrillers and created a memorable protagonist in Villanelle — a female assassin working for a shadowy group of powerful men called The Twelve.
A Russian orphan who took brutal revenge on her gangster father’s killers, she is rescued from prison and trained as a perfect hitwoman. One of her first tasks is to kill a well-protected Sicilian Mafia don in Palermo’s opera house during a performance of Puccini’s Tosca.
As the story unfolds, so Villanelle’s nemesis emerges — a dogged MI5 operative named Eve Polastri who dedicates herself to finding the mysterious assassin.
There are shades of the 1990 film Nikita, but there is an extra sheen of glamour that makes Villanelle more a James Bond than a mere killer.
THE DEATH OF HER by Debbie Howells (Macmillan £12.99)
THIS third novel from the bestselling Howells evokes both the beauty and enigma of Cornwall as it opens with the discovery of a woman’s severely battered body in a maize field.
She survives and wakes in hospital, knowing only that her name is Evie and she has a three-year-old daughter called Angel.
When police circulate her photo, a local woman, Charlotte, recognises her. They were at school together — but then, Evie was called Jen and a child in her care went missing, never to be found.
The mystery deepens when police search Evie’s home and find no trace of a child having ever lived there. Then the body of a teenage girl appears, also in a maize field.
Gradually, the possibility of a Satanic cult emerges, one based on human sacrifice at Halloween, which is only days away. Serpentine and well-told, this novel confirms Howells’ original promise.