Posthumous John le Carré novel to be published in October

LONDON (AP) — A final novel by John le Carré will be published this fall, 10 months after the spy writer’s death at the age of 89.

Publisher Viking said Wednesday that “Silverview,” le Carré’s 26th novel, will be published Oct. 12, in the week that would have seen his 90th birthday.

The publisher said the book is the only complete, full-length novel left unpublished at the time of le Carré’s death. It centers on a small-town bookseller who is drawn into a spy leak.

Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, probed the morally murky world of espionage in the Cold War and its aftermath in books including “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which have come to be seen as classics. The last novel published in his lifetime, “Agent Running in the Field,” was released in 2019.

The writer’s son, Nick Cornwell, said “Silverview” was “the authentic le Carré, telling one more story.”

“The book is fraught, forensic, lyrical, and fierce, at long last searching the soul of the modern Secret Intelligence Service itself,” he said. “It’s a superb and fitting final novel.”

The Associated Press