Those of us who followed John LeCarré’s remarkable career as a chronicler of global politics in the form of sophisticated espionage stories until his death last year felt a pang of sadness mixed with excitement to learn a final posthumous novel was to be published. Its manuscript had been languishing in a drawer, a story the author couldn’t quite finish tinkering with, unwilling to bring it to the public. According to an afterword by his son, it was drafted after A DELICATE TRUTH (published in 2013). He had promised his father he would finish any manuscript that was incomplete on his death, but to his surprise the draft of SILVERVIEW was essentially complete. Why didn’t LeCarré publish it during his lifetime? His son speculates that it cut a little too close to the bone, depicting a service that had entirely lost its way. returnreturnIt’s quite a short book, though it offers the usual cast of eccentric characters, elliptical plotting that involves plenty of double-crosses and moral morasses, and a jaundiced view of the role espionage plays in contemporary geopolitical power struggles. It even includes wives who, like Smiley’s enigmatic Ann, are both unfaithful and cold-hearted. Perhaps marriage was a metaphor for him of betrayal in the face of an incurable romantic streak. It’s not very fair on the women characters, though.returnreturnThe story focuses on Julian Lawndsley, a burned-out financier who has retired to the countryside to open a bookshop though he knows very little about books, and Edward Avon, a Polish émigré who sweeps in and befriends him in an extravagant way. We know that Edward is married to a wealthy former spy who is now dying of cancer in her mansion, Silverview. We also know they have a prickly daughter who, in the opening scene, crossly delivers a letter from her mother to an official in London. To a large extent her irritation is with having to live a hidden life among spies. returnreturnEdward Avon previously worked through a local bric-a-brac shop to sell off a valuable collection of Chinese porcelain. Now he proposes to launch a “Republic of Books” at Julian’s shop, providing lists of classic works and boundless energy. Though he wonders if he’s being conned, Julian becomes enthusiastic. Then Edward asks Julian to take a letter to a mysterious woman in London, all while intelligence officials maneuver in the background, delving into Edward’s past. Clearly there are things afoot that Julian cannot see. returnreturnSILVERVIEW is not top-notch LeCarré; compared to immediate predecessors it’s a minor work, but it fits in the trajectory of his late career dissection of the unheroic role British intelligence services play in post-cold war politics. As one career spook thinks to himself, “the very idea of a consuming passion bewildered him – let alone allowing one’s life to be conducted by it. Absolute commitment of any sort constituted to his trained mind a grave security threat.” Despite the author’s son’s belief this slight novel was too cynical for his father to publish he does, in the end, allow one character a chance to act purely on principle.