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An Exclusive Extract from Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway

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New George Smiley novel from John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway

Gnomon

The fantastic new novel by the author of Angelmaker and The Gone-Away World.

Gnomon is an extraordinary novel, and one I can’t stop thinking about some weeks after I read it. It is deeply troubling, magnificently strange, and an exhilarating read.

Emily St. John Mandel, author of 'Station Eleven'

Nick Harkaway’s most ambitious novel yet. This story of near-future mass surveillance, artificial intelligence and human identity reads as if 11 novels have been crowded into a matter-transporter pod, emerging on the other side weirdly melded. An enormous, shaggy, infuriating, amazing and quite unforgettable piece of fiction, it’s the kind of thing only science fiction can do.

Guardian, Science-Fiction Books of the Year

One of the most remarkable things about the remarkable Nick Harkaway is the irrelevance of his literary heritage. The son of John le Carré, he is very much his own author ... There’s a lot of explanation in this book, but then there’s a lot of everything going on in it. Densely texted pages of ideas, references and similes fizz and sparkle and burst into life in a fireworks display that keeps going ... The writing, too, is rarely anything other than impressive ... Gnomon does reward perseverance. Ludicrously complicated it may be, but it’s also wonderfully good.

[A] prowling deep-sea monster of a novel … A sci-fi detective procedural, violent thriller and multi-layered mystery combine brilliantly to pull us through a profound exploration of power and paranoia, technology and myth … Harkaway dazzles, baffles and teases before guiding us through bloody darkness into understanding.

This huge sci-fi detective novel of ideas is so eccentric, so audaciously plotted and so completely labyrinthine and bizarre that I had to put it aside more than once to emit Keanu-like “Whoahs” of appreciation ... It’s a technological shaggy-dog tale that threatens to out-Gibson William Gibson ... It is huge fun. And it will melt your brain … 700 odd pages power relentlessly by, only to touch down with the delicacy of a SpaceX rocket on – ah yes – the only possible ending. Whoah indeed. I wanted to give it a round of applause.

Gnomon is only as large as its pages, but its pages seem like the door to a sinister Narnia … Reading Gnomon is like being an architecture critic when you suspect your reality is virtual. Its momentum is exhilarating, but frightening too. It resembles, very stylishly, a mind spinning itself insane.

A brainy, labyrinthine plot born of Dr Who and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, with a dash of EU finance, Brexit and some Snowden-esque paranoia about the pervasive surveillance of ‘the System’. A mind-bending, genre-blending fun house with a message or two.

Trying to situate Gnomon in today’s literary landscape indicates how odd a figure it cuts. It has something of the large, fine-grained restlessness of David Foster Wallace, the scale and ambition of Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen. But it’s considerably more gonzo than any of them. It oughtn’t to work. It does, though. Gnomon is that rare thing, a book that cannot be accurately summarised or described. It needs to be experienced. And the experience, though it sometimes threatens to overwhelm, is always readable, absorbing, thought-provoking and, in the final analysis, unlike anything else. This novel is its own thing, separated from the continent, not part of the main. Gnomon is an island. And an island you really should visit.

There is a glorious maximalism to the work of Nick Harkaway … Each novel has questioned – with admirable exuberance – one of the pillars of the novel itself … If one can level a criticism at the work of Jorge Luis Borges it would be that it is so perfectly distilled: Harkaway, on the other hand, takes the same themes and produces endless cadenzas around them. There is a brilliance to his writing, in which each idea is stretched and inverted, contorted and deformed. And he has a gift for the ingenious quip, the aphorism, the sensory simile … Gnomon is a kind of metaphysical epic … The surface sparkle belies a deep seriousness … Gnomon is a serious investigation of technological possibility.

Opening a novel by Nick Harkaway feels like stepping into a theme park for the mind – every page you turn brings new delights for the mind and the senses. Gnomon is brilliant and terrifying, full of pleasures big and small. Basically, everything I want in a book.

Charles Yu, author of 'How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe'

This is a book that is in love with books, and no reader can help but warm to that.

A bit like Terry Pratchett meets Franz Kafka … Harkaway seems like he must have a brain the size of a planet.

Woven with witty allusions to everything from obscure texts to pop songs, and warning against an unthinking sacrifice of privacy to paranoia, Gnomon will appeal to fans of William Gibson and David Mitchell.

A novel of energy and huge ambition … that confirms the emergence of major talent.

Nick Harkaway was born in Cornwall in 1972. Author of the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman, he lives in London with his wife and two children.

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
'Gnomon is an extraordinary novel, and one I can’t stop thinking about some weeks after I read it. It is deeply troubling, magnificently strange, and an exhilarating read.' Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven 
 
'Nick Harkaway’s most ambitious novel yet. [A] story of near-future mass surveillance, artificial intelligence and human identity ... An amazing and quite unforgettable piece of fiction.' Guardian 
 
'Harkaway dazzles.' Daily Mail 
 
'Wonderfully good.' Sunday Times 
 
Near-future Britain is a state in which citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of 'transparency.' Every action is seen, every word is recorded and the System has access to thoughts and memories. 
 
When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn't Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter's psyche. 
 
Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.

Doctor Who: Time Trips (The Collection)

Groundbreaking Doctor Who adventures by some of the most respected writers in the Universe - now available in one volume

Cecelia Ahern (Author) Before embarking on her writing career, Cecelia Ahern completed a degree in journalism and media studies. Her first novel, PS, I Love You was one of the biggest-selling debut novels of 2004 and a number one bestseller. Her successive bestselling novels are Where Rainbows End, If You Could See Me Now, A Place Called Here, Thanks for the Memories, The Gift, The Book of Tomorrow, The Time of My Life, One Hundred Names, How to Fall in Love and The Year I Met You and have collectively sold 23 million copies. PS, I Love You became an International box office success, starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler, and Where Rainbows End was adapted to Love, Rosie starring Lily Collins and Sam Claflin. Cecelia has also co-created the hit American television comedy series Samantha Who? Jake Arnott (Author) Jake Arnott was born in 1961, and lives in London. His debut novel, The Long Firm, was published in 1999 to huge public and critical acclaim. He Kills Coppers, Truecrime, Johnny Come Home, The Devil’s Paintbrush and The House of Rumour have followed to equal acclaim. Both The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers have been made into widely praised TV dramas. Trudi Canavan (Author) Trudi Canavan lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has been making up stories about people and places that don’t exist for as long as she can remember. While working as a freelance illustrator and designer she wrote the bestselling Black Magician Trilogy, which was published in 2001-3 and was named an ‘Evergreen’ by The Bookseller in 2010. The Magician’s Apprentice, a prequel to the trilogy, won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2009 and the final of the sequel trilogy, The Traitor Queen, reached #1 on the UK Times Hardback bestseller list in 2011. Jenny T Colgan (Author) Jenny T. Colgan has written numerous bestselling novels as Jenny Colgan, which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 25 languages, and won both the Melissa Nathan Award and Romantic Novel of the Year 2013. Aged 11, she won a national fan competition to meet the Doctor and was mistaken for a boy by Peter Davison. Stella Duffy (Author) Stella Duffy has written thirteen novels, over fifty short stories, and ten plays. She has twice won Stonewall Writer of the Year and twice won the CWA Short Story Dagger. She adapted her novel State of Happiness for film with Zentropa/Fiesta, HBO have optioned her Theodora novels for a TV mini-series. She is also a theatre-maker; Associate Artist with Improbable, Artistic Director of Shaky Isles Theatre. Stella is the Co-Director of Fun Palaces, the campaign for wider cultural engagement for all. Nick Harkaway (Author) Nick Harkaway was born in Cornwall in 1972. Author of the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman, he lives in London with his wife and two children. Joanne Harris (Author) Joanne Harris is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of over twenty novels. Her Whitbread-shortlisted novel Chocolat was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is the author of several other bestsellers, including The Lollipop Shoes, Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé and The Strawberry Thief. She has also written acclaimed novels in such diverse genres as fantasy based on Norse myth (Runemarks, Runelight, The Gospel of Loki), and the Malbry cycle of dark psychological thrillers (Gentlemen &amp; Players, Blueeyedboy, and Different Class). 
 
Born in Barnsley, of an English father and a French mother, she spent fifteen years as a teacher before (somewhat reluctantly) becoming a full-time writer. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE, and in 2022 an OBE. She lives in Yorkshire, plays bass and flute in a band first formed when she was sixteen, and works in a shed in her garden. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and served for four years as Chair of the Society of Authors. She also has a form of synaesthesia which enables her to smell colours. Red, she says, smells of chocolate. A.L. Kennedy (Author) A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

Time Trips is a unique and beautifully illustrated collection of Doctor Who adventures from bestselling and award-winning writers including Joanne Harris, Trudi Canavan, Nick Harkaway, A.L. Kennedy and more. Taking you from ancient Alexandria to nameless planets in the far future, these tales are at turns funny, frightening, moving and thought-provoking – short stories that are bigger on the inside. 
 
Time Trips includes: 
 
The Anti-Hero (featuring the Second Doctor) by Stella Duffy 
 
Salt of the Earth (featuring the Third Doctor) by Trudi Canavan 
 
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller (featuring the Third Doctor) by Joanne Harris 
 
The Death Pit (featuring the Fourth Doctor) by A.L. Kennedy 
 
A Handful of Stardust (featuring the Sixth Doctor) by Jake Arnott 
 
The Bog Warrior (featuring the Tenth Doctor) by Cecelia Ahern 
 
Keeping Up with the Joneses (featuring the Tenth Doctor) by Nick Harkaway 
 
Into the Nowhere (featuring the Eleventh Doctor) by Jenny T. Colgan

Tigerman

From the highly acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker comes Nick Harkaway's brilliant new novel about ex-colonies, superheroes and paternal love.

Astonishing … Graham Greene would have treasured this book … Nick Harkaway has all the writerly skills to pull it off. His Tigerman lives because of his wit and daring intelligence, and his empathy. Words quiver whenever he writes.

Nick Harkaway’s novels inhabit a remarkably imaginative territory. He is J.G. Ballard’s geeky younger brother, pumped up on steam-punk and pop culture, interested in the effects of modern life on our psyches; he is J.G. Farrell’s grandson, poking at the ruins of civilization and seeing what comes out …Harkaway writes with a precision that belies the fantastical nature of his plots …Nick Harkaway manipulates and subverts conventions and archetypes. He has created something with all the hallmarks of the craftsmanship that he extols, making Tigerman a sly commentary on authorship and genre; and perhaps more importantly, a fantasia both swashbuckling and glorious.

Nick Harkaway's best novel yet, full of irrepressible adventure, practical vigilantism, an island murder mystery and some terrifyingly credible ideas including the seismic mash-up of chemical waste and unknown bacteria and the chilling no-man's land of the international of waters of the Fleet where anything goes. It's busting with heart and verve. I loved it utterly.

Harkaway occupies that enviable territory where books of a speculative nature intersect with the mainstream, as evidenced by his previous novels The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker. Tigerman, his third, is his best yet, a funny, moving and thought-provoking tale … it’s brilliant.

Extraordinary…The action sequences in Tigerman are some of Harkaway’s best. As ever, the writing is economical but lively, revelling in modern idiom…[Has] the cinematic scope and dynamism one has come to expect from Harkaway…The ending of Tigerman is pitch-perfect, thrilling and dramatic.

Tigerman is equal parts eco-fable, comic-book caper, thriller and buddy novel. Gripping stuff.

This mission will move you as powerfully as it will enthral you.

Harkaway has crafted an engaging story that examines the nature of heroes and the tropes of old-school pulp fiction, mixing sharp characterisation with an energetic portrait of a society heading for apocalypse … Often hilarious but with an undercurrent of dark violence, this is an impressive novel that conceals provocative questions inside an old-school tale of ripping adventure.

original, rewarding … unexpectedly tender

Brilliant, full of energy and imagination.

Harkaway uses the story of a disappointed man and a disenfranchised boy to examine matters of real import. His great gift as a novelist … is to merge the pace, wit and clarity of the best "popular" literature with the ambition, complexity and irony of the so-called "literary" novel. Tigerman is in some ways all about the stripes: the distinctive becomes camouflage.

There’s so much here: a bit of a spy novel, a lot of a classic thriller, a fat dollop of comic mayhem, plenty of literary depth, a chunk of eco-commentary and a bloody good read to boot. You can’t ask for much more in a book.

Full of fine descriptive passages and memorable figures

Expertly crafted … Harkaway’s most touching and emotionally engaging book yet.

As entertaining and imaginative as you’d hope … Harkaway’s words jump off the page … clever and confidently written … The end of the story seems to come too soon and that’s usually the mark of a great novel. Nick Harkaway takes the reader on a wild adventure and, though you know it’s all fiction, there’s a little part of you that wishes that Tigerman was actually real.

Stealthy … Sneaky … Gripping … It is, in short, awesome. Read it immediately.

Tigerman manages ... that elusive combination of intelligent, beautiful writing with a story that is imaginative, fast-paced and really good fun. There's plenty to make you think as well as plenty to make you laugh … Harkaway writes with such dexterity and delight … That balance of proper storytelling with literary complexity is, for me, what makes a book really special and Tigerman does this with aplomb - it's a joy to read.

Tigerman is a brilliant and unique novel which deserves to be read again and again ... dazzling display of creativity.

I was dazzled … Characterisation is as ever top notch … this is a marvel … everyone will appreciate the sheer grace and artistry of it.

Tigerman is a truly engaging and original book; for all the nail-biting tension, humour, superheroic deeds and a brilliant twist there is also a deep and honest heart to it ... This is easily one of the best books I've read this year.

With intelligent, witty writing you cannot help but warm to the unlikely and slightly hapless hero in Lester Ferris.

A virtuoso piece of entertainment which hurtles satisfyingly towards its conclusion after delivering a startling, didn’t-see-that-coming sucker-punch of a twist.

The key to Harkaway’s writing is the incredibly textured depth and imaginative characterisation. It is one of those books whose character are so rich that by the climax, you feel like they’ve penetrated your reality and you want to keep them close, even after the book is over.

Original and exciting, full of humanity and comedy, Tigerman by Nick Harkaway is a beautiful piece of work

Original, exciting, full of humanity and comedy, Tigerman by Nick Harkaway is a beautiful piece of work.

Nick Harkaway is the author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker, and of an even better and more exciting novel whose name will probably end up being Tigerman, or possibly Man, Island, Boy. Contrary to what you may have heard, the title really is the hard part. When he's not writing, he spends his time being the husband of a brilliant lawyer and the dad of two small children who are secretly bent on world domination. He likes Italian red wine and lives in a bit of London where the taxis still have a horse at the pointy end.

'Gloriously exuberant and entertaining.' Guardian 
 
'A funny, moving and thought-provoking tale ... It's brilliant.' Independent on Sunday 
 
Sergeant Lester Ferris is a good man in need of a rest. He’s spent a lot of his life being shot at. He has no family, he’s nearly forty, burned out and about to be retired. 
 
The island of Mancreu is the perfect place for Lester to serve out his time – and the perfect place for shady business, too, hence the Black Fleet of illicit ships lurking in the bay: listening stations, money laundering operations, drug factories and deniable torture centres. None of which should be a problem, because Lester’s brief is to turn a blind eye. 
 
But Lester has made a friend: a brilliant, internet-addled street kid with a comic-book fixation who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. As Mancreu’s small society tumbles into violence, the boy needs Lester to be more than just an observer. He needs him to be a hero.

Doctor Who: Keeping Up with the Joneses (Time Trips)

Time Trips - a groundbreaking series of digital Doctor Who adventures by some of our best-loved writers. Short stories that are bigger on the inside...

Deep in the gap between the stars, the TARDIS is damaged by a temporal mine. It&rsquo;s not life-threatening, but the Tenth Doctor will need a while to repair the damage. But he&rsquo;s not alone. The strangely familiar-looking Christina thinks the Doctor has arrived in her bed and breakfast, somewhere in Wales. In fact, the TARDIS seems to have enveloped Christina&rsquo;s entire town &ndash; and something else is trapped inside with it. A violent, unnatural storm threatens them all and &ndash; unless it&rsquo;s stopped &ndash; the entire universe.

Angelmaker

From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World - an adventure story, a war story, and a love story, all wound into one brilliant narrative that runs like clockwork.

Angelmaker is another cracking book from Nick Harkaway. It’s a mix of sci-fi, steampunk, adventure and romance and the mix of genres work really well together … Harkaway’s Angelmaker is a brilliant piece of escapism. It’s a wonderful example of how an irreverent approach to much loved genres can lead to a truly great story.

Nick Harkaway's joyfully reckless invention is as intricate as clockwork ... Edie has a tangled history, the uncovering of which is one of the chief pleasures of Nick Harkaway's novel ... is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages ... brilliantly entertaining, and the last hundred pages are pure, unhinged delight. What a splendid ride.

What kind of a mind dreams up Angelmaker … It could only be Nick Harkaway: bonkers, brilliant and hilarious … clever and entirely fantastic.

An entertaining tour-de-force that demands to be adored.

A puzzle box of a novel as fascinating as the clockwork bees it contains.

Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus

Wildly imaginative novel is enough to tie the brain in knots; it's a comedy, a thriller, a crazy fantasy ... Harkaway has created a wonderfully entertaining, unguessable kaleidoscope of a novel.

This brilliant, boundless mad genius of a book runs on its own frenetic energy, and bursts with infinite wit, inventive ambition and damn fine storytelling. You finish reading it in gape-mouthed awe and breathless admiration, having experienced something very special indeed.

Another fizzingly imaginative melodrama…A wildly, irrepressibly exuberant new-weird/ fantasy/ thriller /comedy.

It's an ambitious, crowded, restless caper, cleverly told and utterly immune to precis...[Makes] Don Quixote look sedentary ... a very timely novel about belatedness...Joe is in one sense a 21st-century everyman, indebted to a previous generation, disenfranchised by a conspiratorial state... Angelmaker turns out to be a solid work of modern fantasy fiction, coupling credit-crunch anxiety with an understandable nostalgia for the mythical days of "good, wholesome, old-fashioned British crime".

A story of technology and morality. It's a wonderfully strange, rich piece of work - extremely entertaining and exciting - and has a wonderfully comic aspect to it as well.

[a] dazzling story..a witty and wonderfully sprawling fantastical thriller.

From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World - an adventure story, a war story, and a love story, all wound into one brilliant narrative that runs like clockwork. 
 
Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. 
 
Joe Spork, son of the infamous criminal Mathew ‘Tommy Gun’ Spork just wants a quiet life, repairing clockwork in a wet, unknown bit of London. 
 
Edie Banister, former superspy, lives quietly and wishes she didn’t. She’s nearly ninety and the things she fought to save don’t seem to exist anymore. She's beginning to wonder if they ever did. 
 
When Joe is asked to fix one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. The client? Unknown. The device? A 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie’s old arch-nemesis. Joe’s once-quiet world is now populated with mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe. The only way he can survive, is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she gave up years ago, and pick up his father’s old gun...

A Short Story

Edie Investigates

From the author of The Gone-Away World - an exhilarating espionage murder-mystery. 
 
There has been a strange death in the quiet village of Shrewton: old Donny Caspian has lost his head. In the Copper Kettle tea rooms, Tom Rice, a junior nobody from the Treasury, puzzles over the details of the case. He has been sent by his superiors to oversee the investigation, but is he supposed to help or hinder? At the next table, octogenarian superspy Edie Banister nibbles a slice of cake and struggles not to become Miss Marple. But what is the connection between the two? Who killed Donny Caspian, and why? 
 
Taking in Rice's present and Edie's daring past, from duels on shipboard to death in back alleys, 'Edie Investigates' is a superb short story from the incomparable Nick Harkaway. 
 
Also included with this short, the first chapter of Nick Harkaway's long-awaited new novel Angelmaker.

The Gone-Away World

The literary debut of 2008 - part adventure, part comic opera, part geek nirvana

Its scope and ambition are extraordinary, its execution is often breathtaking, and its style is by turns hilarious, outrageous, devastating, hip and profound ... Hugely entertaining

Breathtakingly ambitious ... A bubbling cosmic stew of a book, written with such exuberant imagination that you are left breathless by its sheer ingenuity

[A] post-apocalyptic triumph ... Immensely rewarding ... Genuinely terrifying

There are delightful moments aplenty ... Any author who has come up with the beautifully silly plan of melding a kung-fu epic with an Iraq-war satire and a Mad Max adventure has to be worth keeping an eye on

A debut novel of the kind that comes along only once every couple of years, overflowing with imagination yet powered by the kind of cleverly twisting plot that marks him out as a master storyteller ... A quirkily original writer

Has the pace and action of an episode of 24 ... The agility of the narrative is one of the great strengths of this book ... Harkaway is robustly confident ... Particularly effective are his Matrix-like fight scenes, brought to life in meticulous yet flowing prose

A stunning debut ... By turns thrilling, silly, gripping, crazy, daring and outrageous. I loved every minute ... The Gone-Away World is brakes-off fiction

I loved it...exuberant, mind-bending science-fiction/fantasy adventure about truckers, weapons that wreck the very fabric of existence, foul-mouthed drill instructors, ninjas and stuff like that.  But by golly it's well written, funny and enjoyable

With his debut The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway has created a fictional universe that is out of this world

A big new book by a big new writer. Well done! Harkaway describes The Gone-Away World in words that whiz and ping like bullets ricocheting off the walls of the reader's mind. He's the real thing

A genuine panoramic, 3D, surround-sound, total-immersion, thrill-factor ten miracle - it is the kind of book that you just don't want to end! ... Engrossing, action-packed ... Very highly recommended

The Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it's on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out - but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings and into the dark heart of the Jorgmund Company itself. 
 
Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey and Romantic Epic, The Gone-Away World is a story of - among other things - love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places; and of a friendship stretched beyond its limits. But it also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes - however unlikely they may seem.

The Taper Man

It's 1965, and the world lives on a knife edge. After the nuclear standoff in Cuba, and with Vietnam even now becoming a major conflict zone, the Cold War is colder than ever. The Circus, home of British intelligence, has one formidable clandestine asset in Moscow: a senior officer in the Red Army who is privy to deep Soviet secrets. But when a British agent is shot on a routine visit to Helsinki, George Smiley uncovers a counter-intelligence operation which puts all that in jeopardy. 
 
 The trail leads not to Berlin or Vienna but to Los Angeles, where Smiley's nemesis, the Russian master spy known only as Karla, may have a long-term, low profile agent - a Taper Man - poised to expose London's man in Moscow. 
 
 Hunting the traitor in the heart of US intelligence, Smiley must reckon with American's stark internal divisions over race, patriotism and belonging as he tries to find an answer to the present crisis in the secrets of the past. Meanwhile Roy Bland, a daring but fragile Circus spy presently in Leningrad without the protection of diplomatic cover, must push his luck to breaking point to reveal the Russian end of the operation and rescue a defector whose time is running out - and get Smiley the last piece of Karla’s puzzle. 
 
 The Taper Man, the latest novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Nick Harkaway, is a gripping return to the shadow world of John le Carré. Elegant, tense and morally intricate, it is an extraordinary and timely continuation of one of literature's greatest espionage legacies -- and a landmark work of modern spy fiction.

Nick Harkaway

John le Carré

‘Is this new ‘le Carré’ novel even better than the master himself? Harkaway has done an extraordinarily good job with his father’s legacy. Karla’s Choice is note-perfect.’

What a treat! Karla's Choice expertly evokes the atmosphere of the originals

A loving tribute as well as an excellent novel in its own right

It is difficult to encapsulate what a remarkable achievement this novel is. Karla’s Choice is absolutely first rate, as both a homage to le Carré and as a work in its own right

Karla’s Choice breathes new life into the murky world of the Circus. If you haven’t read any Smiley books, then this wouldn’t be a bad place to start

An accomplished and welcome addition to le Carré's oeuvre. Harkaway has drawn on his deep knowledge of his father's work to produce a tale faithful to the originals, while subtly adding a lighter, more modern touch.

Harkaway is a fine writer and he has resurrected his father’s books brilliantly

Brilliant – every bit as suspenseful and knowing as the original, and often more humorous

A satisfyingly intricate tale filled with intrigue and suspense. Karla's Choice is an accomplished homage and a captivating thriller.

Tense and atmospheric, meditative and moving. Fans of le Carré will have much to rejoice about

Gripping, clever, and full of tension, Karla’s Choice bridges the gap in the Smiley saga perfectly. Fans of John le Carré will not be disappointed.

Elegant as smoke, ruthless as steel, Karla’s Choice is a love letter to fans of Smiley, but it’s also got le Carre’s furious humanity and Harkaway’s playful intellect. A genuinely surprising treat.

Every reader of John le Carré will love this brilliant book

It’s thrilling to be back with old friends and enemies. Smiley’s tested, essential goodness sings through the pages. I couldn’t put it down.

Scott Mariani, Number One Sunday Times Bestselling author of the Ben Hope series

A John le Carré Novel

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 on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. 
 
But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Susanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But in his absence the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley will soon find himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come, and strike at the heart of his greatest enemy… 
 
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.

Nick Harkaway

Praise for Karla's Choice

‘Is this new ‘le Carré’ novel even better than the master himself? Harkaway has done an extraordinarily good job with his father’s legacy. Karla’s Choice is note-perfect.’

What a treat! Karla's Choice expertly evokes the atmosphere of the originals

A loving tribute as well as an excellent novel in its own right

‘Is this new ‘le Carré’ novel even better than the master himself? Harkaway has done an extraordinarily good job with his father’s legacy. Karla’s Choice is note-perfect.’

What a treat! Karla's Choice expertly evokes the atmosphere of the originals

A loving tribute as well as an excellent novel in its own right

‘Is this new ‘le Carré’ novel even better than the master himself? Harkaway has done an extraordinarily good job with his father’s legacy. Karla’s Choice is note-perfect.’

What a treat! Karla's Choice expertly evokes the atmosphere of the originals

A loving tribute as well as an excellent novel in its own right

Books by Nick Harkaway

Articles featuring Nick Harkaway

An Exclusive Extract from Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway

New George Smiley novel from John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway

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