Silverview, a new John le Carré book, to be published in October

A brand new John le Carré book will be published in October, in the same week the late author would have turned 90.

Titled Silverview, the book is "a brilliantly conceived novel about the tension between personal and political loyalty," according to publishers Viking, which will "interrogate the concept of moral goodness in the face of public duty."

Le Carré died from pneumonia in December. It was his wish that his literary legacy was looked after by his children and they have been working with an archivist to catalogue the author's unpublished work.

Silverview was written alongisde le Carré's last two novels, A Legacy of Spies (2017) and Agent Running in the Field (2019). It is the only complete full-length novel left unpublished at the time of his death.

"This is the authentic le Carré, telling one more story," said Nick Cornwell, le Carré's youngest son and the novelist Nick Harkaway. "The book is fraught, forensic, lyrical, and fierce, at long last searching the soul of the modern Secret Intelligence Service itself. It’s a superb and fitting final novel."

Mary Mount, who published le Carré's work for the past 10 years, described Silverview as "mesmerising... beautifully constructed and so acute on the forces – love, loyalty, duty, guilt – that motivate us." 

Le Carré's agent, Jonny Geller, John le Carré’s literary agent, described reading the novel as feeling like "a gift he has left us. Silverview is as urgent and alive as any of his past work."

Silverview will be published on 14 October, 2021.