a legacy of spies
Richard A. Wright, Orvil E. Dryfoos Chair of Public Affairs, and Professor of Geography
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A Legacy of Spies is a coda to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold—the book that made le Carré famous and allowed him to become a full-time novelist. Now 85, le Carré’s writing remains as sharp as ever. John le Carré takes the reader back behind the Iron Curtain, contrasts the old British spy services with the new (neither come off well) and even revives George Smiley. Dwight Garner’s brilliant review in the New York Times comments that "Smiley must be well over 100 by now. He’s a type; one of those ashen Englishmen, like the poet Philip Larkin, who seem to be permanently 60 years old. Like Keith Richards and cockroaches, Smiley will be alive after an apocalypse.”