Book review: Silverview by John le Carre

SILVERVIEW by John le Carre. Penguin Books.

The twenty-sixth and `last complete book` from the late great le Carre is, as expected, a good read. But I wouldn’t say it is among his best.

Here the protagonist Edward /Florian begins life on the page as a shadowy figure and stays that way all through to the end; great going for a spook but this reader would have liked something more to build a mental image of the character on.

This is a posthumously discovered work and you have to wonder how much of a hand le Carre`s son Nick Cornwell had in possible tweaking or rewriting of the mansucript.

It`s familiar le Carre territory, teeming with Secret Service people, unwitting `civilian` pawns who are nevertheless quick studies, and nothing in the East Anglia village the writer has set this book in, is quite what it seems. Of course.

The conflict zone is the erstwhile Eastern Europe this time, with focus on the small nations who fought for a slice of the pie in the wake of Yugoslavia’s disintegration. Typically, the action is not fast-paced but the reveals are released in small significant doses, and the reader guesses what`s going to happen a few pages before it does happen.

What didn’t quite work for this reader aka me, was Pawn No 1 in the game, youngish Julian Lawndsley and (spoiler alert) his romance with Florian`s daughter Lily. Neither did the Florian/Julian bonding. As for a long passage which tells of a meeting between another Service spook Proctor and a retired couple who had been most active in the field, was awkward and very obviously an info dump.

There`s a thin line of cynicism for (this fictional) British foreign policy running through the book, sometimes barely ascertained though, and one wished for a more trenchant condemnation.

To counterbalance those weak points, you have a spymaster writing about the lives of spies in a characteristically convincing manner. You have simply marvellous language where doorways are deemed pretentious, there`s trouble at mill, safe telephones are covered with old tea cosies, bow-fronted escritoires make an appearance, people meet in the local greasy spoon, wear derelict expressions, behave in a saucy manner, spit at the ceiling and glean stuff from other people.

Oh, and there`s a delightful bit about a bibliophile`s test: front cover, inside flap, quality of paper, binding, general weight, friendliness. Don’t you just love this?!