"[Le Carré's] novels are so brilliant because they're emotionally and psychologically absolutely true, but of course they're novels." --
New York Times Book Review "Le Carré's prose remains brisk and lapidary. His wit is intact and rolls as if on casters... I might as well say it: to read this simmering novel is to come in from the cold."
--New York Times "Le Carré is such a gifted storyteller that he interlaces the cards in his deck so they fit not simply with this book, but with the earlier ones as well." --
The Atlantic "A kind of eulogy for the present as well as the past,
A Legacy of Spies is haunting." --
Chicago Tribune "Swift and satisfying."
--USA Today
"We wish for more complexity and logic in our politics, so we look to make political art that is logical and complex: a genre defined by John le Carré." --
New Republic "The spy master's latest Smiley novel entwines today's world with a lost one... Ingenious."
--Washington Post "Intricately plotted and richly satisfying."
--Star Tribune "Gripping."
--The Christian Science Monitor "[Le Carré] can convey a character in a sentence, land an emotional insight in [a] phrase & demolish an ideology in a paragraph."
--Publishers Weekly (starred)
"Any reader who knows le Carré's earlier work, and quite a few who don't, will assume that any attempt to second-guess the mandarins of the Service will backfire. The miracle is that the author can revisit his best-known story and discover layer upon layer of fresh deception beneath it."
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Kirkus Praise for John le Carré "One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-man's land."
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Los Angeles Times "No other writer has charted--pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers--the public and secret histories of his times."
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The Guardian (UK)
"I would suggest immortality for John le Carré, who I believe one of the most intelligent and entertaining writers working today."
--Alan Cheuse,
Chicago Tribune "The constant flow of emotion lifts le Carré not only above all modern suspense novelists, but above most novelists now practicing."
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Financial Times "A writer of towering gifts."
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The Independent (UK)