Silverview

This novel by John Le Carré was published posthumously by his youngest son, Nick Cornwell, with--according to him--only minor editing required. It is a short but evocative story of the disillusionment of one former agent of MI6 who turns his back on country rather than on his ideals. Former City financier, Julian Lawndsley, has left the hustle and purchased a small book shop in an East Anglian seaside town, even though he knows absolutely nothing about the business. He is seemingly rescued by one of the town's residents, Edward Avon, who browses but doesn't buy, but offers up the idea of converting the basement to a literary haven, which would stock all the writers and philosophers who are not the usual bookshop fare. Edward, a Polish emigre, lives with his wife, who is dying of cancer, in the manse Silverview, just outside of town.

Meanwhile, when the head of security for MI6, Stewart Proctor, receives a note from a former agent warning of an intelligence leak, his queries lead him to this same quiet town and to Julian. 

The reviews tend to focus on Le Carré's career as a whole but do offer some specifics about this final work. According to The Guardian, "Silverview has three outstanding set pieces, any one of which more than outweighs weaknesses of plot. Proctor’s interrogation of two retired colleagues, in which Edward Avon’s history is anatomised, is le Carré at his finest, revealing character and backstory through dialogue with an economy and grace beyond most writers. The service funeral is pure social comedy...reminding us that no one was better at showing that spies are just like everyone else. And then there’s Proctor’s visit to a classified outpost...here the conversational duelling is as exciting as a car chase...Because chaps, surely, are le Carré’s subject, here as always; chaps and the loyalties they inspire, the causes they embrace, the institutions they betray...In the intelligence community, we learn, anything short of pragmatism can be a grave security risk. While le Carré’s villains betray their countries for ideology or – worse – money, his decent people do so for love and idealism..."

The New York Times says that Le Carré's "last completed spy novel crowns a career attuned to moral ambivalence." There are additional laudatory reviews from The Wall Street Journal, Kirkus, and The Washington Post, among others.