The late British novelist and former spy John le Carré is giving us a present for his birthday next year. Viking has announced it will publish Silverview, his 26th novel, on October 12, the same week that he would have turned 90. The book was the last complete, full-length novel that le Carré left unpublished when he died last December. The author worked on the spy story alongside his two most recent titles, A Legacy of Spies and Agent Running in the Field (you will, of course, recognize movies adapted from his other books, like Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). Set in modern Britain, Silverview will follow Julian Lawndsely, a man who leaves behind a bustling city life to run a bookshop by the sea. A Polish émigré who knows more than he should about Julian’s family takes an unusual interest in the new store, while a London spy chief’s investigation into a potential treacherous leak brings him to the same coastal town. “This is the authentic le Carré, telling one more story,” le Carré’s son, Nick Cornwell, a novelist who uses the pen name Nick Harkaway, said in a release. “The book is fraught, forensic, lyrical, and fierce, at long last searching the soul of the modern Secret Intelligence Service itself. It’s a superb and fitting final novel.” According to the release, le Carré wanted his children to look after his literary legacy. They are currently working with an archivist to catalogue his archive of unpublished writing.
