New George Smiley novel won't be glamorous like Bond, says author

ESPIONAGE author Nick Harkaway, son of former Cornwall resident John le Carré, has announced a second spy novel continuing the adventures of his father's creation George Smiley.

- by HANNAH ROBERTS [e-mail] @CornwallLive

Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, wrote the original series about Smiley, who works for Britain's overseas intelligence agency, referred to in the novels as The Circus. He died in 2020 aged 89.

Mr Harkaway, 52, whose real name is Nicholas Cornwell, published his first continuation novel, Karla's Choice, last year and has now followed it up with The Taper Man.

"Last time I was kind of deliberately unaware of how much pressure there actually was," he said.

"Then, after I finished, and as the reviews started to come out and they were positive, I got retrospective terror. All of them begin with, 'I really expected to hate this book, and I don't', and I thought 'Gosh; that would have been really awful.'

"There are a lot of reasons why it shouldn't work, so I think everybody had sort of legitimate fear, and I have great respect for that."

In the new novel Smiley is dispatched to the United States to pursue an old communist network on the West Coast.