The book feels like fanservice, but not all fanservice is bad! Dan Moren recommended this at the tail end of a recent episode of The Incomparable, and I was surprised that I hadn’t heard that a new George Smiley story was coming out. In conversation with my partner later, she mentioned that she’d told me when she saw it in the news and that I’d brushed it off. That tracks: I had some trepidation about someone else writing in Le Carré’s world, but it’s quite well done.

I appreciate how it—like A Legacy of Spies—revisits The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and fits it into the Karla arc. I like how it adds more dimension to George and Ann’s relationship without changing it. I appreciate that it added new characters while bringing back familiar faces. I also appreciated Simon Russell Beale narrating it, since he might be my favorite Smiley.

• Karla's Choice
• Nick Harkaway
• John Le Carré
• A Legacy of Spies
• Simon Russell Beale
• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold