Agent Running in the Field

A fine piece of storytelling. It is a neat, compact, slow-burning tale with just the right amount of twisting and turning and misdirection. Divided loyalties, uncertain motives, Russian agents, bureaucratic infighting, jaded spies, tatty offices - all of the things you want and expect from a high-quality le Carré thriller are here * The Times *A very classy entertainment about political ideals and deception … laced with fury at the senseless vandalism of Brexit and of Trump. Le Carré is the master of the spy genre. * Guardian *Le Carré delivers a tale for our times, replete with the classic seasoning of betrayal, secret state shenanigans and sad-eyed human frailty, all baked into an oven-hot contemporary thriller … Agent Running in the Field is right on the money, in psychology as much as politics, a demonstration of the British spy thriller at its unputdownable best * Robert McCrum, Observer *As ingeniously structured as any of le Carré’s fiction, skilfully misdirecting the reader for much of the time * Evening Standard *A masterpiece * Mick Herron, TLS *Master of the game * Sunday Times *Le Carré’s troubled new protagonist is developed with the author’s customary skill … an impeccable piece of writing * i *No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times * Guardian *The master is back on form in this tale of Russian subterfuge and a middle-aged spy ’s suspicious badminton partner * The Times *A rich, beautifully written book studded with surprises. Narrative is a black art, and Le Carré is its grandmaster * Andrew Taylor, Spectator *

John le Carre was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carre widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

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