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Nick Harkaway talks to Philippe Sands

Fictions: Karla’s Choice

Hay Festival 2025, 

Son of John le Carré and acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway leads us into an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of the spymaster. Karla’s Choice is set in the missing decade between two iconic George Smiley novels, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

It’s spring 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. Among the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. But Control has other plans. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last task – but soon finds himself entangled in a perilous mystery…