John le Carré, real name David Cornwell, is arguably the most prominent spy novelist in British history. He has a number of classics to his name – including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, A Perfect Spy, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Now le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway has ranked his father’s top five best books to mark the release of his own novel, Karla’s Choice – featuring George Smiley.
No. 5 – Silverview
Published posthumously ten months after le Carré’s death aged 89 in December 2002, Silverview was the unfinished book the spy writing legend’s final unfinished manuscript completed by his son, Nick Harkaway in a process he described at the time as “more like retouching a painting than completing a novel”.
The cat-and-mouse tale begins in a small East Anglian bookshop and ends up dragging its owner into a tale of treachery and uncertainty. “Obviously the book I worked on after dad died, and I think this also reflects on dad’s experience of life, which is fascinating when you look back at his early books,” explains Nick.
(Image: John le Carré)
No. 4 – Single & Single
This 1999 novel starred a Customs officer, Nathaniel Brock, on the trail of an international fraudster at the centre of a complex money-laundering operation as le Carré moved away from pure espionage and into the realms of global crime, corruption and oligarchs. Includes a children’s magician – and some promotional copies, now incredibly rare and valuable, came with a set of juggling balls.
“I just love it,” says Nick. “Oliver Single has hints of my older brother Tim and of me, and there’s a fondness in it, and a sense of caring, which makes me smile. And it has a happy ending!”
(Image: John le Carré)
No. 3 – A Delicate Truth
In an interview to promote the book, le Carré described 2013’s A Delicate Truth as one of his most British, and most autobiographical, novels, revealing that two of the characters ere directly based on himself.
It features a covert action in Gibraltar, possibly loosely based on the real-life 1988 operation during which three members of the IRA were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.
Says Nick: “Short, punchy and angry, it’s both a modern book and one that reflects the first three novels he ever wrote. An often-unnoticed masterwork.”
(Image: John le Carré)
No. 2 – The Constant Gardener
This 2001 novel was filmed four years later, starring Ralph Fiennes as British diplomat Justin Quayle trying to find answers to the killing of his activist wife, played by Rachel Weisz.
Le Carré set the action in Nigeria and embroiled his hero in a web of corruption and big pharma dodgy dealings, and it was very loosely based on a real-life case. #
Nick says: “Another book with traces of people I recognise woven into the characters, and his first really furious one of the post-Cold War period. Just a zinger!”
(Image: Ian West/PA)
No. 1 – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Almost certainly le Carré’s most famous and enduring novel, 1974’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy saw ageing spook George Smiley struggling to uncover a Soviet mole in The Circus amid stress-inducing Cold War tensions.
Adapted for television starring Alec Guinness and, later, for the big screen with Gary Oldman as Smiley, it was followed by The Honourable Schoolboy in 1977 and Smiley’s People in 1979 which together make up the “Karla Trilogy” – named after Smiley’s Russian nemesis.
Nick says: “This is the first one I was ever conscious of. It framed my childhood and I still love it. Complex, slow moving and still achingly tense, it’s the defining Smiley book for me..”
(Image: Focus Features)
