Thematically, this is classic le Carre: an exploration of how people do the wrong thing for the right motive. The prose is as unshowily superb as ever
* Sunday Telegraph *
His publisher is promoting it as
a great literary event -
the final book by one of postwar Britain's finest writers. That seems fair enough to me . . . [
Silverview has] enough reminders of
the old magic to please his most ardent aficionados -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *
A fitting coda to the work of our greatest spy novelist -- John Williams * Mail on Sunday *
Textbook le Carre and a pleasing coda to a brilliant career: a s
hort, sharp study of the human cost of espionage * Daily Telegraph *
The first page hooks you in . . .
John le Carre has lost none of his power to draw the reader straight into his world * The Times *
Arguably the greatest English novelist of his generation * Guardian *
Crisp prose, a precision-tooled plot, the heady sense of an inside track on a shadowy world . . . all his usual pleasures are here
* Observer *
Le Carre's ability to inhabit the deepest recesses of his characters' lives is once again on sparkling display . . . It leaves no doubt that le Carre believed good literature could help make the world a better place. His own contribution to that edifice was by no means negligible
* FT *
A diverting if slender coda to one of the boldest writing careers of the 20th century . . . In this posthumous farewell, le Carre is still showing us how literary fiction and the spy narrative can coexist in the same book
* i *
Packed with cherishable details and intriguingly ambivalent about the role of the Secret Intelligence Service, John le Carre's last novel brings his career to a close in fine style
* Scotsman *
It has often been said that le Carre is a novelist, not a mere thriller writer. Yet the thing is that, for all his protests that his creations were always more fictional than credited, what he excels at is giving us a
plausible peek into the spy's world * The Times *
It is
written with elegance and often pungency, the pitch-perfect dialogue ranging from the waggishly epigrammatic to the bluntly outraged * New York Times *
Promises to be
filled with intrigue, surprises and timely meditations on the relationship between individuals and nations * i *
First-rate prose and a fascinating plot . . . a fitting coda to a remarkable career * Publishers Weekly *
