Review of "A Legacy of Spies: A Suspense Thriller" by John Le Carré

In "A Legacy of Spies" John Le Carré takes us from the present day back to the time and setting of his most famous book "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold."

*****

As the story opens Peter Guillam, a former protegé/right-hand-man of spy-master George Smiley, is a senior citizen living on his ancestral farm in Brittany.



The elderly Guillam is summoned back to London by the British Intelligence Service ('the Circus') to answer questions about a cold war operation that went badly wrong. During the mission - decades ago - British agent Alec Leamas and his girlfriend Elizabeth Gold were shot dead at the Berlin Wall.



Now, Leamas' son (Christoph) and Gold's daughter (Karen) have joined forces to sue the British spy agency for millions of pounds.....for the wrongful deaths of their parents.



Two current honchos at the Circus - a man called Bunny and a woman named Laura - are investigating the case, hoping to stave off the lawsuit.



They can't find George Smiley - who's apparently gone deep underground - so they want Guillam to tell them the whole story about the operation that got Alec and Elizabeth killed.

The 'whole story' is quite complicated, but I'll provide the basic outline (avoiding spoilers). During the cold war an attractive East German woman named Doris Gamp - a low level employee of the Stasi - became disenchanted with her life. Doris's Stasi husband was a closet homosexual who beat and abused her....



.....and Doris's Stasi boss was a pig who expected sexual favors. The one light in Doris's life was her five-year-old son Gustav.

Wanting to help 'reform' communist East Germany - so creepy men wouldn't have all the power - Doris began photographing secret Stasi documents and passing them to the British.



The Circus dubbed the espionage operation 'Wallflower' and Doris was given the codename 'Tulip.' Peter Guillam became Tulip's contact, and being a notorious ladies' man, fell in love with her.



Such relationships were STRICTLY FORBIDDEN by the Circus, so Peter kept his trap shut about it.

Over the course of time Tulip passed priceless information to the west. Eventually, Tulip's husband became suspicious of her activities, and exposure seemed imminent. So British agent Alec Leamas, a seasoned operator, took it upon himself to exfiltrate Tulip to Britain.



Unfortunately, little Gustav couldn't go but Leamas promised that mother and son would be reunited at a later time. Alec and Tulip's exfiltration trip was quite harrowing, and provides the major excitement in the story.

In any case, a tragedy ensued and - due to various circumstances I can't divulge - a high-placed Stasi spy called Hans Dieter Mundt was forced to become a double agent for the British. Later, when the Stasi began to suspect Mundt of double-dealing, Alec Leamas undertook a super-secret mission to save the communist's skin and keep him in power.



The task required a female sidekick, so Elizabeth Gold - a naive English girl who happened to be a communist - was roped into the operation by Peter Guillam. Alec and Elizabeth became involved romantically and - when things went belly up - ended up dead.

Christoph Leamas blames the British Intelligence Service - and especially Peter Guillam - for his father's death. Christoph, a big man who's no stranger to criminal activity, means to get restitution one way or another. Thus Christoph stalks elderly Peter, tries to extort him, and threatens his life.



From the point of view of the Circus, proof of this entire cold war operation - which greatly benefitted Britain - would make Cristoph and Karen's lawsuit moot. However, only George Smiley knows the location of all the pertinent documents, and he can't be found.

And that's the gist of the novel. There's also a sub-theme about a possible mole in the Circus during the cold war, who was outing agents to the enemy. Unfortunately this thread didn't really go anywhere (much to my disappointment.)

I enjoyed the book, especially the insights into the spy game and how agents operate. (In grade school I wanted to be a spy, and wrote the CIA. At that time women were considered more secretarial than spy material, so I was disappointed with the CIA's response.....and my dreams didn't pan out. Their loss!! Ha ha ha.)

I'd highly recommend this book to all readers who like espionage novels, especially fans of John Le Carré.


Author John Le Carré

Rating: 3.5 stars