Karla's Choice

Book excerpt: An extraordinary new novel set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist 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 for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But, as Smiley well knows, even the softest step in the shadows resounds with terrible danger. Soon, he is back there, in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy’s hidden past. Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction’s greatest writer, John le Carré.