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''Silverview'' is a novel by British writer
John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...
, published posthumously on 12 October 2021. The book was completed for publication by his son Nick Cornwell. In the afterword, he noted that the process was "more like retouching a painting than completing a novel." He also speculated that his father refrained from publishing it sooner because it “does something that no other le Carré novel ever has. It shows a service fragmented: filled with its own political factions, not always kind to those it should cherish … and ultimately not sure, any more, that it can justify itself.” ''Silverview'' centres on a young bookseller, an enigmatic Polish immigrant, and a British agent hunting down a leak. At just over 200 pages, it is the shortest le Carré novel since ''
A Murder of Quality ''A Murder of Quality'' is the second novel by John le Carré, published in 1962. It features George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in his only book set outside the espionage community. Plot summary Long retired s ...
'' in 1962. In 2021, Penguin Audio released an audiobook version, read by
Toby Jones Tobias Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. Jones made his film debut in Sally Potter's period drama ''Orlando'' in 1992. He ...
.


Plot

Julian Lawndsley has left a career in the financial sector in London to open a bookstore in a small seaside town in East Anglia. Soon after opening the shop, a Polish immigrant named Edward Avon comes in, not to buy books but to chat. He urges Lawndsley to open a section of the store in the basement called the Republic of Literature, which would offer only the classics. Edward Avon is later revealed to be a retired agent for MI6 and a former communist. Avon claims to have known Lawndsley's father at school before he joined a cult. Lawndsley's father had a prolific sex life and ran up debts. As he continues to learn more about Avon's background, Lawndsley is fascinated by his different identities, and he wonders which are performances and which are real. He soon becomes entwined with the life of Avon's family: his wife Deborah – also a former top British intelligence agent – who is terminally ill, and his daughter Lily, a single mother. In another narrative strand, Avon is being investigated by the secret service's head of domestic security, Stewart Proctor. Proctor is suspicious of anyone like Avon, an ex-Communist, who demonstrates an absolute commitment to anything and who is thus a grave security threat. Proctor goes looking for Avon, suspecting him of being the source of an intelligence leak, and drags Lawndsley into his mission in the process.


Reception

The novel received generally favourable reviews from literary critics. ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' wrote that "the great spy novelist’s final full-length book is a precision-tooled cat and mouse chase from a bookshop in East Anglia to the old eastern bloc." ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' book review was generally positive about the novel but noted that it ends abruptly and feels incomplete. The reviews said that "if ''Silverview'' feels less than fully executed, its sense of moral ambivalence remains exquisitely calibrated." ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' magazine gave the novel a mixed review and also commented on its feeling unfinished. The review said that "''Silverview'' also feels unfinished—not in its narrative, but in the bits in between major plot points... tis more a drinkable blended whiskey than the vintage single malt le Carré completists might have been hoping for". It also opined that his 2017 novel '' A Legacy of Spies'' was a more fitting swansong for his career.


References

{{Authority control 2021 British novels Novels by John le Carré Novels published posthumously Novels set in London Viking Press books