A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré

Published by Viking on September 5, 2017

John le Carré created the most extraordinary character in spy fiction when George Smiley appeared in Call for the Dead (1961). Smiley became a primary or secondary character in several other novels, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), the novel that put John le Carré on the map. In the Karla trilogy (1974 to 1979) — the best spy novels and among the finest literary novels I’ve ever read — Smiley unmasks a mole in British intelligence. Smiley was a moral man who used immoral means to do his job well and suffered for it. Younger than Smiley but often at his side was Peter Guillam, a key player who helped Smiley gather information that exposed the double agent and brought down Karla, the mole’s handler.

John le Carré died at the end of 2020, leaving behind a legacy of brilliant spy fiction (plus a mainstream novel that I quite enjoyed). His final novel, published in 2019, was a standalone. Two years before the release of that novel, he penned the aptly titled A Legacy of Spies, the last novel in the Smiley series. In many ways, it showcases his own legacy by reaching back to the events in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and explaining how events leading up to and following the tragedy of that novel — Alec Leamas and Liz Gold are shot at the Berlin Wall — were manipulated by Smiley and the man known only as Control.

At Smiley’s direction, Guillam has kept the true details of that incident out of the official record. Eventually the truth bites at his ankles, as Alec’s son, Cristoph, together with Liz’s daughter Karen, have sued the government, claiming that it is complicit in their parents’ deaths. Well, they’re right about that to some degree, although they don’t know all the details of Operation Windfall, conceived to smoke out the traitor in the upper ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service and to mislead Russia while protecting a vital source, an operation that had unfortunate consequences for Leamas and Gold.

Now the SIS needs to feed someone to the wolves to satisfy Parliament. Smiley is nowhere to be found. Official files have disappeared and, if they could be found, they would be covered with Guillam’s fingerprints. Guillam is politely interrogated before being locked in a library where he can read some of the secret files he hid (although not the ones he concealed off premises) as a prelude to answering more questions. Much of the novel is told in Guillam’s memory as he reads memoranda, some of which he wrote, and tries to assemble a coherent story about the past that doesn’t quite live up to the truth. As he does so, he fears that only Smiley can save him from his own indiscretions.

It put a smile on my face just to read the names of characters who have become iconic in spy fiction: Toby Esterhase, Bill Hayden, and the memorable Jim Prideaux, who makes a brief appearance near the novel’s end, quite unchanged since his featured role in The Honourable Schoolboy. And of course Smiley himself, still idealistic, still troubled by the moral choices that challenge his idealism. Looking back on his life, Smiley admits that he has never cared about preserving capitalism or Christendom. His duty was to England, not the England of Brexit but an England that was “leading Europe out of her darkness towards a new age of reason.” That England, he frets, may be moving away from reason and returning to darkness, as was much of the world when A Legacy of Spies was published.

Guillam is old as he tells this story. Unless John le Carré left a nearly finished manuscript lying about, it is his last appearance, a last glimpse of all the characters who did their best during the Cold War to lead England out of darkness. It offers the final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is Smiley’s career and puts a frame around the completed picture. John le Carré did his fans a huge favor, and added to an unparalleled legacy of his own, with A Legacy of Spies.

RECOMMENDED

The Vigilant Spy by Jeffrey Layton

Published by Kensington on May 11, 2020

The Vigilant Spy is the fourth in a series of novels featuring Yuri Kirov, a Russian intelligence asset who defected and joined the western world of private enterprise. He gives the CIA an assist from time to time as the price of freedom. The Vigilant Spy fills in enough details of Yuri’s past that it can be read as a standalone.

The story begins with Uyghur dissidents who believe they are retrieving an underwater surveillance device. To their misfortune, they are are actually setting off a small nuclear device near a Chinese naval base. The operation doesn’t go exactly as planned, but the Russians who conceived it have made the Chinese blame the resulting EMT damage on the United States. The Russian operation is in retribution for China’s earlier antagonism toward Russia, in which China also attempted to deflect blame to the United States for its mischief.

Yuri Kirov was a Russian intelligence operative who is using his knowledge of submarines and underwater drones to win defense contracts for the Alaskan business he founded. The CIA and DOD decide his specialized knowledge will come in handy when it learns of a new Chinese weapon, an underwater drone that moves like a snake, wraps itself around targets, and explodes.

Kirov, a CIA agent, and some SEALs try to break into a Chinese military base to steal plans for the device, a Mission Impossible adventure that, to Jeffrey Lawton’s credit, the heroes must abandon in favor of a slightly more realistic objective. Before the novel ends, Kirov will engage in a daring escape from China with a hostage in tow, while the submarine that supports his mission plays tag with Chinese and Russian vessels in the South China sea.

Lawton writes action scenes that are brimming with tension and sets them up with the kind of groundwork that allows a reader to suspend disbelief. Lawton makes the relatively outlandish plot seems barely plausible, in part because the story never pushes past the outer boundary of credibility. The machinations of China, Russia, and the United States all have an aura of realism. The political intrigue adds a layer of interest to the fast-moving story.

Kirov is presented as a guy who would like to put politics behind him and move forward with his new western family. Characterization isn’t deep but it’s sufficient for an action novel. The fact that Kirov is a Russian spy-turned-defector makes him more interesting than the typical super-patriot thriller hero. The Vigilant Spy isn’t a top shelf spy novel, but it is an entertaining action-thriller.

RECOMMENDED

The Last Agent by Robert Dugoni

Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 22, 2020

The Last Agent follows The Eighth Sister as the second book to chronicle the exploits of Charles Jenkins, an unretired spy. Jenkins came out of retirement in the last novel because he needed the money. In this one, Jenkins returns to Russia to repay a favor.

Jenkins escaped from Russia in The Eighth Sister thanks to the sacrifice of Paulina Ponomayova. She provided a distraction that gave Jenkins time to get away from his pursuers. Jenkins assumed she died. It turns out that she is alive (at least for the moment) and in prison, where she will certainly be tortured on the premise that she knows the identities of spies who have passed information to the CIA for decades.

Naturally, the CIA decides that it would be smart to send Jenkins, a tall black guy who stands out in Russia, to rescue Paulina. Jenkins coerces a retired Russian spy, Viktor Federov, into providing an assist, playing both on Federov’s greed and on his competitive nature. After they confirm that Paulina is still alive, Jenkins concocts a plan to bust her out of prison and smuggle her out of Russia.

Farfetched? Of course it is, but improbability doesn’t get in the way of entertainment in a novel that is largely a setup followed by an extended chase scene. Much of the fun derives from the novel’s tradecraft, the various deceptions and ruses that the CIA employs to keep Jenkins and Paulina from being captured or killed. As for the chase, on roads and trains and boats and foot, Robert Dugoni delivers the excitement that a thriller should generate. The outcome is predictable and the story is bit light on drama, but the last half moves too quickly to allow time for contemplation of the novel’s faults.

The very last scene sets up a return to Russia to save the surviving spies whose identities Jenkins tried to protect in the first novel. Jenkins might want to stay unretired because he hasn’t felt this young in years, chases apparently serving as a tonic for youth until you get caught. I fear that Dugoni will go to the well once to often if he sends Jenkins back to Russia — by now, every cop in Russia must know that a tall black guy should be detained with no questions asked — but it isn’t fair to judge a novel I haven’t read. Maybe the formula will work a third time. I can attest that it worked well enough the second time to earn a recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Spook Street by Mick Herron

Published by Soho Press on February 21, 2017

Mick Herron’s Slough House books are among the most entertaining spy novels of the current century. Slough House is home to members of the British Secret Service who are considered unworthy of employment but who, for whatever reason, cannot be fired. Under the deceptively watchful eye of Jackson Lamb, the “slow horses” at Slough House manage to prevail, more or less, in their fight against England’s enemies, or its friends, depending on the circumstances. Spook Street is the fourth novel in the series.

Spook Street opens with stage setting, reintroducing familiar characters and their problems, which variously include a gambling addiction, alcoholism, anger management issues, and troubled relationships. A new character, J.K. Coe, is clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum and probably high on the psychopathy scale. A terrorist bombing occurs in the background but doesn’t seem immediately connected to the plot.

The plot’s immediate concern is River Cartwright, whose grandfather, a legendary spy who raised River, is becoming lost to dementia. River’s grandfather is increasingly paranoid and apparently living in the past, certain he’s being followed by an enemy. Lost in his fantasy, when River comes to his home and draws him a bath, the old man seems determined to kill his grandson.

That plot eventually sends a capable killer to Slough House while Lamb is off buying whiskey, leaving nobody tending the shop who has the skills to fight an armed assassin. Before that happens, a slow horse does some actual spying, traveling undercover to France and learning about a black ops training site that was apparently responsible for the attempt on the life of River’s grandfather and for the assassin who invades Slough House. The purpose for the site remains a mystery until the novel’s end, one of a few mysteries that occupy the reader as the story gathers steam.

Like the other novels in the series, Spook Street integrates humor, action, and unexpected moments of drama. The first third is a mix of wit, farce, and slapstick before a more serious story begins to unfold.

It seems unwise to pick a favorite character in this series because the character might not survive until the end of the story. But live or die, the characters all have the kind of quirky personalities and idiosyncrasies that invite empathy. They are not necessarily a likeable bunch — they tend to have love-hate relationships with each other — but they are fundamentally decent and, on occasion, surprisingly competent. Particularly Lamb, whose competence is never in question, but whose Machiavellian nature asserts itself in the interest of a good cause at the novel’s end. Above all, having been a joe for much of his life, Lamb takes care of his joes. “And one thing joes learn quickly is that those who write the rules rarely suffer their weight.”

Mick Herron stitches this all together with fine prose, deadpan humor, and sympathetic insight into the emotions of third string players. Spook Street maintains the high level of a series that offers a unique and welcome take on the British spy novel.

RECOMMENDED

Hammer to Fall by John Lawton

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on March 10, 2020

Hammer to Fall is the third Joe Wilderness novel, but I have not been so fortunate as to read the first two. John Lawton has an unusual take on the spy novel genre. Wilderness (whose birth name is Holderness) is a bit of a rogue, a patriot when necessary and a hustler when opportunity presents itself. Spying suits his personality because he’s a born deceiver, but so does filling his safe with ill-gotten currency. The story is amusing for that reason, but it is far from a comedy. Hammer to Fall creates suspense in the best tradition of spy novels, including a couple of classic prisoner exchanges on bridges.

The novel has many moving parts and covers a significant span of time. Central characters weave in and out of each other’s lives as the story unfolds.

Joe begins the novel as a Schieber (black marketeer). In 1948, Joe is a Russian-speaking British corporal who does business with Eddie Clark and an American named Frank Spoleto, selling stolen coffee to a Russian named Kostya Zolotukhin. Kostya’s mother is a general in the NKVD known as the Red Widow. She rips off Joe and the Schiebers in a deal for peanut butter, leaving Kostya to face their wrath.

Spoleto goes on to be a CIA agent. Joe’s lover at the time is woman named Nell Burkhardt who was “raised by thieves and whores back in London’s East End” yet has a moral compass that Joe lacks.

Fast forward to 1966 and Joe is a field agent for MI6 who has seemingly misplaced a Soviet agent named Bernard Alleyn during a prisoner exchange. What actually happened to Alleyn plays a key role in the novel’s resolution. As punishment for apparently bungling his mission, Joe is sent to Finland, where nothing is happening. Joe passes the time by reengaging with Kostya in a black-market vodka operation until he stumbles upon information that might suggest an actual Soviet plot against the West. Along the way Joe gives a career assist to a bright woman named Janis Bell.

Joe next travels to Prague after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, posing as a tractor salesman. The Prague station chief, whose wife slugged a Russian spy, is spirited away and replaced by an old friend of Joe. Another old friend, Freddie Troy, who also has a feisty wife, goes to Prague as the UK ambassador. All of this leads to the story’s culmination, which circles to the beginning and brings back characters from Joe’s past in another tense scene on a bridge between East and West.

Lawton’s characters have a realistic (not to say cynical) view of the world that they sometimes express with a bit of snark. For example, when Troy is told that his mission in Prague is to show support for democratic rebels while quietly turning most of them over to the Russians because “we can’t put up tents on the embassy lawn” to house them all, Troy asks why it is important to demonstrate support publicly if “in private you’re getting ready to dump them.” Of course, Troy’s wife promptly puts up tents in the embassy lawn.

The plot is also realistic in that it doesn’t involve a series of chase scenes and shootouts. Joe is bored much of the time because spying involves a good bit of waiting and watching. There’s little chance for the reader to be bored, however, because Joe fills his time in interesting ways. And moments of fast action arise with sufficient frequency to give the book a good pace.

Complex characters, a fascinating and wide-ranging plot, and a terrific sense of atmosphere make Hammer to Fall a pleasure to read. The book is self-contained, but the ending sets up the next installment with a mini-cliffhanger.

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