The last of John le Carre's espionage novels to feature his most enduring & well-loved character George Smiley & a gripping feat of narrative brilliance The Secret Pilgrim is published in Penguin Modern Classics with an afterword by the author The Cold War is over & 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 & inglorious failures in a career that took him from the Western Isles of Scotland to Hamburg & from Israel to Cambodia He asks himself Did it do any good? What did it do to me? & what will happen to us now? In this final Smiley novel the great spy gives his own humane & unexpected answers If you enjoyed The Secret Pilgrim you might like le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold also available in Penguin Modern Classics' Consummate & enthralling' Observer