![]() ![]() Set in Soviet Russia in the mid-1970s, it traces the tensions and dangers of the period through the eyes of frustrated diplomatic wife Martha. ![]() Sarah Armstrong’s new novel The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt(Sandstone Press) is a highly original Cold War thriller. I love the original cover with its creepy Russian dolls, which perfectly captures the novel’s mesmerising ‘stories within stories within stories’ structure. Tinker Tailor draws heavily on the jaw-dropping 1960s revelations that high-ranking British MI6 officers such as Kim Philby had for decades operated as Russian double agents. Pretty much all Smiley knows at the beginning of the novel is that there’s a mole at the top of ‘the Circus’, and his against-the-odds quest to unearth the spy remains a brilliant and exhilarating tale. ![]() Le Carré’s novels detail the epic battle between master spy George Smiley and KGB supremo ‘Karla’ for the soul of the British Secret Intelligence Service. I suspect the Alec Guinness TV series will be next.Īll, of course, are set during the 1970s at the height of the Cold War. ![]() First, I found myself revisiting two novels in John le Carré’s Karla Trilogy – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People – then reading Sarah Armstrong’s thought-provoking The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt, and then watching the 2011 film adaptation of Tinker Tailor. My reading has veered off in a curious direction in the last couple of weeks. ![]()
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