Karla's Choice is a Period Novel

The Le Carré novels weren’t period pieces when they were published. This is actually a problem with their timelines, George Smiley kept getting born later and later so he could be middle-aged wherever the latest novel took place. But they have become period pieces. The Cold War is over, and with it the need for the Circus and its enemies.

Karla’s Choice is “a John Le Carré novel” written by the son of the original author (“John Le Carré” was a pseudonym, as is “Nick Harkaway”). It’s fun, it’s another Circus novel, and that’s enough to justify a read. But it is also aware of history: it spends a lot more time with folks the original author couldn’t see as important, it makes space for more irony. You can’t ever really go home again but you get a different view of home from far away.