His sons are very protective of his work—they have that film company together. He trusted them and I have no doubt this is not a case of raiding the drawer. If it’s being published it’s because he died when it was ready or near ready to go.
We've mentioned this before but the sons want to re-make the early books with Jared Harris as Smiley. Le Carré loved the idea.
I won't spoil it for you but the final sentence of "Agent Running in the Field" serves as a beautiful summary of le Carré's work, and it would have been fitting to stop there. I'm sure it occurred to him. But he was a writer, not someone who writes. They don't stop.
The thing about le Carré is there's a few truly great books, and some good ones and so on. But not really any to ignore, because he was always in the struggle. He was trying to wrestle something to the ground, and often, as with the best artists, he was far ahead of others in it.
Sometimes you would read le Carré and maybe the book didn't hit the heights but two or three or five years later the news caught up to him.
That said, I find "A Legacy of Spies" to be a really chilling book. Only a great master approaching the end could look his young self in the eye like that, and I think in time it will be judged as one of his more important books.
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