Good Reads / Community Library Notes
A Legacy of Spies
John Le Carre
Review by Priscilla Comen
A Legacy of Spies
John Le Carre
Review by Priscilla Comen
A Legacy of Spies, by John Le Carre, is a classic recounting of an old story of British spies and a new story of their current plans.
Peter (or Pierre) is the protagonist who, at age fifty, is called in to tell the big cheese, Bunny, and Laura, his assistant, the truth about his past exploits. Peter has retired to Brittany with his wife, Catherine, but must go to London to confess all. While he is away, Christophe, the son of an old comrade, comes to the farm in Brittany. When his wife gives him the message he wonders why. In London, he is asked about Windfall, information about George Smiley, Liz Gold, and about Christoph, Alec's son. He denies knowledge of all of them.
Tulip is a top notch spy with a husband who abuses her and a son, whom she wants to go to a first class school. To that end she sleeps with her Stasi employer, Rupp, and takes photos of secret documents with her Minox camera. She has duplicated the key to Rupp’s safe. Her doctor (Mayflower is his code name) is proud of her. Peter is her blind courier. In Budapest and Warsaw she deftly passes two cassettes of microfilm to him. Christoph follows Peter and offers him a deal: one million pounds for dropping all charges against him. Peter doesn’t answer.
Peter changes his identity many times and stays at various safe flats, but Christoph finds him. He thinks Peter has killed his dad and Liz Gold. Author Le Carre questions if killing for world peace is justified. Or for England? But which England? This is an intelligent spy novel and the reader must pay close attention to get all the nuances. Find it on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Peter (or Pierre) is the protagonist who, at age fifty, is called in to tell the big cheese, Bunny, and Laura, his assistant, the truth about his past exploits. Peter has retired to Brittany with his wife, Catherine, but must go to London to confess all. While he is away, Christophe, the son of an old comrade, comes to the farm in Brittany. When his wife gives him the message he wonders why. In London, he is asked about Windfall, information about George Smiley, Liz Gold, and about Christoph, Alec's son. He denies knowledge of all of them.
Tulip is a top notch spy with a husband who abuses her and a son, whom she wants to go to a first class school. To that end she sleeps with her Stasi employer, Rupp, and takes photos of secret documents with her Minox camera. She has duplicated the key to Rupp’s safe. Her doctor (Mayflower is his code name) is proud of her. Peter is her blind courier. In Budapest and Warsaw she deftly passes two cassettes of microfilm to him. Christoph follows Peter and offers him a deal: one million pounds for dropping all charges against him. Peter doesn’t answer.
Peter changes his identity many times and stays at various safe flats, but Christoph finds him. He thinks Peter has killed his dad and Liz Gold. Author Le Carre questions if killing for world peace is justified. Or for England? But which England? This is an intelligent spy novel and the reader must pay close attention to get all the nuances. Find it on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.