LONDON -- LONDON (AP) — George Smiley , the subtle fictional spymaster navigating treacherous Cold War currents, is back. And so, somewhat surprisingly, is his creator, John le Carré. Four years after the spy writer’s death at the age of 89 , comes a new thriller, “Karla’s Choice.
” Billed as “a John le Carré novel,” it was written by Nick Harkaway, whose qualifications for the job include seven published novels, a lifetime of reading le Carré — and the fact he is the late author’s son. After decades avoiding his famous father’s shadow, like Smiley trying to leave the intelligence agency known as the Circus, he was drawn back in. Le Carré left a note asking his family, as custodians of his estate, to help his works live on and find new readers.
They took that as permission to write new books. But Harkaway, who made his name with sci-fi thrillers including “The Gone-Away World,” “Angelmaker” and “Titanium Noir,” was apprehensive about being the one to do it. “I would go so far as to say terrified,” said 51-year-old Harkaway, whose real name is Nicholas Cornwell.
Le Carré was the pen name of his father, David Cornwell. “It’s this piece of 20th-century literature that defines a genre and potentially a historical period. This body of work is immense.
And it’s my father’s universe,” he said. “There’s every reason for people to be skeptical.” Sitting in his spacious north London home — in the “very uncomfortable” wr.
