As I read Karla’s Choice, a famous quote from The Godfather reverberated in my head: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III. George Smiley, of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold fame, is retired and living in Oxford, no longer one of the Circus’s most adept and agile spies. It’s the spring of 1963. For historical reference, the Berlin Wall, which figures so prominently in John le Carré’s novels, won’t come down for another twenty-six years. Smiley and his wife Lady Ann spend much of their time visiting her aristocratic relatives and traveling abroad. To everyone’s surprise, the somewhat odd couple have never been happier.

Why would I be reminded of Michael Corleone’s rueful statement? It’s because Control reaches out to Smiley and leans on him to do one “short” job. Here’s the set-up. Lady Ann spots Circus stalwart Amelia (Millie) McCraig, driving “an achingly stylist MGA coupé.” When Ann says, ‘look who’s here,’ to her husband he knows she’s not happy. The visitor was “someone she didn’t like, or she would have just used the name.” Before opening the front door, Ann says baldly, “she’s going to ask you to come back.” When the three of them speak in the front hall, Ann tells Millie she’s lucky she caught them since they’re on their way to ‘a glamourous party in the Alps.’

‘Please don’t trouble with the hospitalities, Lady Ann, I’m afraid I’ve business with your husband. Old business, I promise, not new. George, five minutes. Then St Moritz can have you back.’

‘Five minutes,’ Ann said, before Smiley could speak. ‘I’ll leave you to it then. Always a pleasure, Millie. And I do love that car. Spotless. So you.’

Millie and George sit. Smiley knows how to be still. Millie is irritated that “the line of his gaze never dropped below the shoulder.” ‘It’s new business,’ she said. ‘I lied. I’m sorry.’ Finally, Millie comes to the crux of why Control needs Smiley inside the tent.

‘There’s a girl, Susanna Gero. She’s Hungarian. She works for a fleshy sort of literary agent named Laszlo Bánáti here in London.’ She waited.



Smiley shrugged: carry on.

A man who said he was working for Moscow Centre came to Susanna’s door and said he’d been sent to London to kill Laszlo. But for unclear reasons (he’s found God) he decided not to go through with it. Laszlo has disappeared as has the would-be assassin. When a Russian agent defects “in the most unusual of circumstances,” attention is paid. Control believes that Susanna is in danger—she’s a “pretty Hungarian girl up to her neck in a Moscow assassination plot.” There’s no one who gives a damn about Susanna’s safety the way Smiley would. Millie says, ‘Walk her in, get everything from her and see her safe out,’ insisting it will take no more than 48 hours. Smiley protests—‘Come on, Millie,’ Smiley said. ‘It’s done. Let the old dog sit by the cooker—don’t ask him to go and chase rabbits with the younger ones’—but it’s futile. Millie refuses to take no for an answer, even when Smiley says he’s tired. Smiley stipulates the staff he requires to get the job done and departs for London with Millie at the wheel. How unusual for a spy to come back into the cold, where “the cold represents the danger, isolation, and emotional hardship of spy work.” Smiley is taciturn, holding his cards close to his vest, but it’s obvious that returning to the Circus is taking a toll on him (and tangentially, his always volatile marriage).

This story, particularly its ending, sets the stage for epic battles to come. As well, it references earlier events that readers will know well, from the world of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, especially the death of Alec Leamas. Leamas’s death haunts everyone who knew him. It’s the impetus for Smiley to try to de-escalate the violence, particularly collateral damage, when the titans of the world of spies relentlessly strike and counterstrike. Not to give anything away but Karla, Moscow’s pre-eminent spook, is not moved by Smiley’s approach, as Control sums up:

Control nodded. ‘I asked you to show me the Smiley way and you showed me. Offered Karla the chance to call it all off. No tricks, just the thing itself. Do you reckon he understood that? Knew you meant it?’



‘Yes, I think so.’



‘And no quarter given in reply. Well, then: at least I know what he is. A true believer. That’s how it ends.’



Smiley looked around for Leamas, but didn’t find him.



‘No,’ he said. ‘No, not ends. Not just yet.’

Karla’s Choice plunges the reader into a maelstrom of intrigue and danger. The story moves from London to Vienna, to Eastern Europe and Portugal, with no let-up in suspense. Author Nick Harkaway is John le Carré’s son—he grew up with George Smiley and the Circus. Harkaway has filled in the gaps, fleshed out “the missing decade between two iconic installments in the George Smiley saga—The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” Fans of George Smiley, and they are legion, will rush to read Karla’s Choice, as well as re-read le Carré’s earlier novels.

Having read 'Gabriel's Moon', William Boyd's new espionage thriller, prior to Nick Harkaway's 'Karla's Choice', I can't help but compare the two. Both are excellent, but in different ways. Boyd's offering is, as is typical of his style, highly readable and entertaining. 'Karla's Choice', however, is a different breed: this is slow-burn espionage of a more cerebral variety.
There is a ten-year gap between 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold' and 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. What has Smiley been up to in the interim? This missing decade - or one part of it - is competently embraced by Harkaway in a novel that sees George Smiley prised out of retirement. It is 1963 in London, and Smiley is adjusting to life after The Circus, and about to embark on a trip with his wife, Lady Ann. Then comes the knock on the door and the lure of his 'grey mistress' (Ann's description of The Circus). Hungarian refugee, Banati, has been living undercover a literary agent in London, and his cover has been blown. After a failed attempt on his life, Banati disappears. It falls to a reluctant Smiley, with the help of 'Banati's' assistant and fellow Hungarian refugee Zsuzsanna (now going by the Anglicised version, Susanna), to track him down. Hence, Smiley (whose characterisation feels authentic from the outset, and only solidifies as the plot develops) and readers alike are sucked into a world that fans of John le Carre (Harkaway's father) will be all too familiar with.
Although the spyscape is resonant - Control, Connie, Haydon, et al all feature - this book is best read, from my own perspective, as a stand-alone thriller. This is not the prose of le Carre, which would be impossible to imitate. It is a story told in a similar style by a different writer, a writer with his own strengths. For me, Haraway's style is more accessible than his father's (which is neither a criticism nor praise, simply an observation). Yet the story is very much in keeping with le Carre's plotting: the methodical layering of detail that segues into cat-and-mouse interplay, culminating in a tense, filmic escape episode. The titular character does not feature until the final third of the novel, ratcheting up the tension.
Although set in the early 60s, this book does leak signs of having been written in the 2020s, such as the prevalence of strong female characters. Yet this does not jar at all with the period detail of the novel's backdrop. As mentioned earlier, 'Karla's Choice' works (for me, anyway) as a stand-alone novel. Nevertheless, there are echoes of Alex Leamas and interactions with Jim Prideaux that le Carre readers will understand well, yet simultaneously work within the confines of this one novel.
On the whole, this novel left me wanting more of the same, and has definitely inspired me to read Harkaway's other novels.

“Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel,” by Nick Harkaway, Viking, 320 pages, Oct. 22, 2024.

It is spring 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus, the British overseas intelligence agency. He is living a more peaceful life.

But Control has other plans. Mikhail Bortnik, a Russian agent, has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London, Laszlo Banati, is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna Gero, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. It is to only take 48 hours at the most.

Soon, he is back in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy’s hidden past. Tom Lake, another agent, is helping Smiley. Susanna comes along because she knows Laszlo.

This is set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” written by John le Carré, the pen name of John Cornwell. Nick Harkaway is the pen name of Nick Cornwell, his son.

While it starts off slowly, it soon builds the suspense. It is character driven. You don’t have to be familiar with the John le Carré books to enjoy it, but his fans will agree that his son was the right person to continue the series.

I rate it four out of five stars.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Skeptics take note. Put aside reluctance to read a George Smiley novel not by John Le Carre'. This is a BRILLIANT continuation of the George Smiley series and you should at least give the first chapters a try. No, it's not written by John Le Carre'. He's dead. His son Nick Harkaway had the blessing of his dad and he also has the creativity and skill to write this.
The novel takes place in the interim between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Readers of the latter will see the character from The Circus before the revelations of Tinker, Tailor and that is, to me, a fascinating perspective. Like all George Smiley novels, the the plot has multiple strands, but familiar ones to loyal readers: Families, both found and by blood, multiple identities, and of course the Cold War espionage conflict. When Karla's "choice" is revealed near the end, I challenge you not to get a chill. Leading up to that, there is a chase that goes on for several chapters where George Smiley emerges as something of an action hero! I read this thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin, and I will read it again once I purchase it on release date.
And yes, I will shelve it with all of John Le Carre's novels, because Karla's Choice is a wonderful addition to the Annals of the Circus.

Brilliant! I don't know what possessed Harkaway to dare to undertake this project, but I'm glad he did. To say it was a risk is an understatement. In his own Author's Note he acknowledges that there are those who will automatically hate him for trying and those who will automatically love him for the same. As an avid LeCarre fan, I came with a healthy dose of skepticism which evaporated as Smiley's voice crept in my ear. It's a wonderful story, with characters we know well. Interestingly, it doesn't extend the Smiley story, s much as slot in some missing pieces. A brave effort and exceedingly well done.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking for an advance copy of this new thriller set in the world of espionage created by John le Carré, and his famed character George Smiley, written by his son, Nick Harkaway.

When my father passed away many things in my parents home were showing signs of their age, their unworkability, and a few cases their unsightliness. My father was in no way a master craftsman of any type, but he was good with both tools, his brains, and had an Irish stubbornness that made things work. Or he made them work, just don't look to close. A year or so after he died I began to stop in an see what I could do. At the time YouTube wasn't the video instruction library it would come to be, so most of my knowledge came from numerous How-To books, magazines, questions to my friends who knew things. And I looked at what my father had done, and tried to remember helping him, learning a vocabulary of new words, and times when it was just my Dad and myself. As I did things, I learned how the sausage was made, sometimes copying things, sometimes trying new things, and as in the living room I remade, found myself proud of what I had done. I hope Nick Harkaway feels a sense of pride, for in working in his father's world, making new adventures for characters long thought retired, Harkaway has made something familiar, something new, and something quite good. Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel is a new adventure featuring old characters set at the height of the Cold War, with old enemies plotting, morals being compromised, and a battle not between good nor evil, but entrenched bureaucracies fighting for who knows what.

A young woman arrives at the London publishing firm she works at, and is surprised to find that her boss, a Hungarian exile like herself is not already at his desk, which is very unlike him. A knock on the door brings a man who exclaims that he is there to murder her boss on orders from his employers, but has not decided to do so. This little mystery is enough to entice George Smiley back to his old job at the Circus, a branch of British Intelligence. Smiley had left when his last mission had led to the sacrifice of a friend, and vowed never to return. However Smiley has a feeling this story is much bigger than what it seems. And soon, working with many familiar names from other le Carré works, Smiley begins to follow little breadcrumbs that seem to be telling a story, a story that might lead him to Karla, his opposite number in Russian intelligence, a man willing to do anything to keep his secrets.

I have read quite a few things by Nick Harkaway in the past, but did not realise the family relationship between Harkaway and le Carré. However it does seem fitting for espionage authors to have different names. My first thought, as a long time bookseller, upon seeing the continuing adventures of George Smiley, was ughh. Authors never seem to die, they always have more books stashed away in vaults, or desks. Just stop and let new authors make legacies. However I have enjoyed Harkaway so at least it will be good. Highly recommend Titanium Noir. I had no idea about the family relationship, and probably wouldn't have cared. Until I read this. One this is a good novel, one that fits the detached writing of le Carré perfectly, the sadness of failed relationships, the lack of trust. The setting is perfect, the little mentions the gear shift being too big for Smiley's hand, the stores, the little things. And the plot where instead of saving the world as in some spy books, they are just trying to solve a question. Who was this man, and why is so important to be killed by his own people? Also a large part of the story is about fathers and sons. Even father figures and mentoree. One can read a lot into it, but I am not Freud, so I won't touch it.

This is not just a good spy story, this is a good le Carré story. The introduction is interesting in that Harkaway discusses how his father lost the Smiley voice in his writing, from the various portrayals of Smiley in movies and television. Actually the introduction alone is worth the book, I found that and the acknowledgments very informative and interesting. Not just an author aping a style for publisher bucks, this was a real labor of love, and a labor I want to read more about. A father's legacy can be hard to live up to. I hope Harkaway is proud of what he has done.

I had worries which were very soon assuaged. An admirable outing into the world of Smiley, and I would happily read more.