At their headquarters in London, English spies are alerted to an information leak. Their investigations lead them to an English seaside town where a young man called Julian has just opened a bookshop. Strangely, Julian has been sought out by an older man called Edward, who lives in the area, and he is puzzled by the interest in his bookshop and his family.

Nietzshe’s house in Weimar was called Silberblick, so it had to be Silverview for us.

There is no shortage of praise for the novels by John le Carre, and this one is no exception: “a minor masterpiece” (The Evening Standard); “crisp prose, a precision-tooled plot, the heady sense of an inside track on a shadowy world” (The Guardian); “a gift to scholars, aficionados of the genre, and readers at large eager for one last look at the creative mind of an acknowledged master of his field” (New York Journal of Books). Although the plot is reasonably simple (as compared to many of le Carre’s early novels), it requires the reader to pay attention to details. “Le Carré was always a superb plotter, and here he deftly arranges a mosaic of seemingly unrelated events and conversations that cohere into a full picture only as the book comes to an end. The narrative rewards yet demands close attention; unless you happen to note the make of a car driven by a mysterious unnamed woman introduced fairly early on, for example, events toward the book’s end might prompt some head-scratching.” (Time Magazine)

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