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Notes on Karla’s Choice

Karla's Choice, A John le Carré Novel

The full name of this new novel by Nick Harkaway is Karla’s Choice, A John le Carré Novel. The wording is a clear sign of a “continuation novel,” penned after the original author’s demise.

Audible describes this book as, “Set in the missing decade between two iconic installments in John le Carré’s George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Karla’s Choice marks a momentous return to the world of spy fiction’s greatest writer.”

So, this novel doesn’t continue le Carré’s work but interjects itself between two of them. What Audible leaves out is that both John le Carré and Nick Harkaway are pseudonyms, and that David Cornwell and Nicholas Cornwell are father and son.

Nick Harkaway is an award-winning novelist in his own right, but his genres typically lean toward fantasy and magical realism. Taking on Smiley’s world seems like huge stretch, but Harkaway handles it with aplomb.

The key to Smiley is the entirely specific voice of both the period and the secret world. Harkaway either captures it perfectly or, because it’s been a while since I’ve read a Smiley novel, he captures the feel of it so well that the reader is comfortably immersed.

The story is also authentic, as are the plot twists, as is the fact that a Smiley novel is a pleasurable slog. Recommended.

By Nick Kraft