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The Secret Pilgrim

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241337189

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 197mm x 31mm x 127mm

  • Weight: 386g

  • RRP: £14.99

The Secret Pilgrim

The eighth of John le Carré's espionage novels to feature his most enduring and well-loved character, George Smiley, The Secret Pilgrim is a gripping feat of narrative brilliance.

The Cold War is over and Ned has been demoted to the training academy. He asks his old mentor, George Smiley, to address his passing-out class. There are no laundered reminiscences; Smiley speaks the truth - perhaps the last the students will ever hear. As they listen, Ned recalls his own painful triumphs and inglorious failures, in a career that took him from the Western Isles of Scotland to Hamburg and from Israel to Cambodia. He asks himself: Did it do any good? What did it do to me? And what will happen to us now? In this late Smiley novel, the great spy gives his own humane and unexpected answers.

'Consummate and enthralling'
Observer

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241337189

  • Length: 416  Pages

  • Dimensions: 197mm x 31mm x 127mm

  • Weight: 386g

  • RRP: £14.99

Reviews

  • Le Carré writing at his exceptional best

    Mail on Sunday

  • Consummate and enthralling

    Observer

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About the Author

John le Carré

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020.

John le Carré

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Features

Your first look at the TV adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl

John le Carré’s suspense-filled drama The Little Drummer Girl hits TV screens later this year. Here's your first look at the production that includes industry heavyweights Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Shannon.
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Extracts

The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carre

In this extract from The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré describes the accusations of disloyalty he faced from former Secret Service colleagues - and how Alec Guinness used them in his portrayal of George Smiley
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Extracts

The Night Manager

Hide away in Cairo with this spy thriller masterpiece

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