Category: Reviews

#WWWWednesday – 20th November 2024

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

How To Solve Your Own MurderHow To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin (audiobook, Quercus)

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

Blue PostcardsBlue Postcards by Douglas Bruton (Fairlight)

Once there was a street in Paris and it was called the Street of Tailors. This was years back, in the blue mists of memory.

Now it’s the 1950s and Henri is the last tailor on the street. With meticulous precision he takes the measurements of men and notes them down in his leather-bound ledger. He draws on the cloth with a blue chalk, cuts the pieces and sews them together. When the suit is done, Henri adds a finishing touch: a blue Tekhelet thread hidden in the trousers somewhere, for luck. One day, the renowned French artist Yves Klein walks into the shop, and orders a suit. 

Recently finished

Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway (Viking)

Eye of the Raven by Tim Hodkinson (Head of Zeus)

For the first time, Einar and the Wolf Coats find themselves divided, on opposing sides in a time of warfare: the Wolf Coats in Ireland, and Einar in the Saxon domains of England.

Einar leads a warband for King Aethelstan, but struggles to find acceptance as a Norseman in Saxon lands. Can he truly make common cause with the wily king of the English, if that means Vikings like himself are now his enemies? The rewards of alliance with Aethelstan could be all he desires… or a brutal death.

But other threats loom from the north and west. With war brewing and a great battle on the horizon, can Einar and his comrades reunite in time – or will a clash for the ages make their split a permanent one? (Review to follow)

What Cathy Will Read Next

Time of the ChildTime of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury via NetGalley) 

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Book Review – Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway

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About the Book

Book cover of Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus.

With the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy.

But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigrée and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead.

But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy…

Format: Hardcover (320 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 24th October 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

Find Karla’s Choice on Goodreads

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My Review

As Nick Harkaway explains in his Author’s Note, there were always supposed to be more George Smiley books but by then the ‘external Smiley’ – particularly as embodied by Sir Alec Guinness in the 1979 TV adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – had supplanted his father’s own image of Smiley in his head. Karla’s Choice is Harkaway’s attempt to give us that more Smiley, taking advantage of the ten year gap in Smiley’s fictional life between the events of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. (In fact, there was another novel between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – The Looking-Glass War – although Smiley plays a less substantial role in it.)

It’s probably not essential to have read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold but it would certainly help (plus it’s a great book) because the events of that novel, which culminates in the death of British agent Alec Leamas, loom large over Karla’s Choice. They definitely loom large in George Smiley’s mind being the person who was sent in to ‘clear up’ after Leamas’ death. Movingly, Smiley recalls the task of choosing the clothes in which Leamas would be buried. I felt one of the strengths of the book was the way it explored the moral dilemmas faced by those working in intelligence. ‘They were spies. Deception and betrayal were their legitimate tactics.’ Also the burden of living with the consequences of your actions, actions which may prove fatal for others.

Officially Smiley has retired from the Circus and is attempting to repair his marriage to Ann. The author gives us a tender portrait of their relationship. Although very different in character, their mutual affection is believable. However, he is lured back by that wily figure, Control, head of the Circus, to investigate the sudden disappearance of publisher, Laszlo Banati, shortly before the arrival of a Russian agent sent to kill him. With the assistance of Banati’s assistant Susanna, a Hungarian émigrée, Smiley attempts to discover more about the man who called himself Banati, why he disappeared and why someone should want to kill him.

What follows is an intricately plotted manhunt that takes us across Europe. What gradually emerges is the story of a boy whose identity now, decades later, must remain a closely guarded secret. It reunites Smiley with an individual he met long ago who has now reached the pinnacle of power within the Russian security service – Karla. It takes quite a long time for Karla to appear on the scene given the book’s title but then this is only the beginning of the duel between Smiley and Karla that plays out in later books including Smiley’s People.

The author skilfully evokes the atmosphere of the Circus, with its rather public school like quality and specialist departments who jealously guard the nature of their activities and are often presided over by idiosyncratic individuals such as the redoubtable Connie Sachs with her remarkable memory and facility for marshalling information. If you’re familiar with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I think you’ll agree the author gets it spot on when it comes to the depiction of characters such as Toby Esterhase, keen to adopt the persona of an Englishman but unable to hide his Hungarian roots, or Bill Haydon, all lascivious charm and miffed if he’s not at the centre of what’s going on. (Personally, I can never see the names of the characters without picturing the actors who played them in the 1979 TV adaptation.)

Nick Harkaway admits there will be people who love Karla’s Choice because, as he says, ‘their attachment to George Smiley and the Circus is so deep that any slight touch of his hand is enough to bring them joy’. On the other hand, he knows there may be others whose hackles rise at his ‘absurd hubris’. I’m definitely in the first category. I thought the book was a brilliant addition to the George Smiley oeuvre and I was completely drawn into the world the author has created. I think his father would be proud.

My thanks to Christian at Christian Lewis PR for my proof copy.

In three words: Intricate, suspenseful, immersive

About the Author

Author Nick Harkaway

Nick Harkaway is the acclaimed author of books including Gnomon, The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker, Tigerman and Titanium Noir, and writing under the name of Aidan Truhen, of the Jack Price novels, beginning with The Price You Pay. He is the son of John le Carré and has an unique insight into his father’s work. He lives in London with his wife and two children. (Photo: Amazon author page)

Connect with Nick
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