Nick Harkaway writes second George Smiley novel as le Carré’s work comes to West End for first time
Nick Harkaway, John le Carré’s son, has written a new George Smiley novel for Viking as le Carré’s work comes to London’s West End for the first time.
Harkaway’s new novel, The Taper Man, featuring his father’s iconic spy, George Smiley, is scheduled for publication in 2026.
The new work will continue the plotline explored in Harkaway’s previous book, Karla’s Choice (Viking), which was published last October.
In his new novel, Harkaway will send George Smiley for the first time on an operation to America, pursuing an old Communist network across the West Coast.
It is 1965, 18 months after the events of Karla’s Choice, and within the missing decade between the two instalments in the Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (both published by Penguin Classics).
Against the backdrop of the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War, Smiley finds himself dealing with a crisis involving the "cousins", which throws him once again in a struggle to find a path in the dark. To whom does he owe his allegiance? To this investigation in America or to the wider geopolitical gameboard?
Viking’s publishing director Harriet Bourton and commissioning editor Edward Kirke acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown. Geller is agent to the le Carré estate. Nick Harkaway is represented by Patrick Walsh at Pew Literary.
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Bourton said: “Karla’s Choice proved to be one of the great espionage novels of recent times and it is so incredibly exciting to be continuing George Smiley’s story with The Taper Man. The reader could not be in more expert or ingenious hands with Nick. He has taken on a legacy and made it his own, and we are so ambitious about reaching a huge audience with this extraordinary new addition to the iconic literary world of John le Carré."
Harkaway said: "It is an enormous pleasure to be working with George Smiley again, this time following the breadcrumbs of a messy debacle in Helsinki all the way to the US West Coast, uncovering the truth of Karla’s 1950s network in California, and pursuing Roy Bland into the USSR. It is time to meet our American cousins."
Simultaneously announced today (20th May), le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, will premiere in the West End this autumn, six decades after its publication. Following a sold-out premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2024, the play will be produced by The Ink Factory and Second Half Productions in association with Nica Burns. Adapted by award-winning playwright and screenwriter David Eldridge and directed by Jeremy Herrin, this is the first novel by le Carré to be brought to life on the London stage. It will run at Soho Place from 17th November 2025 until 21st February 2026.
Clare Cornwell, director of the John le Carré estate, said: “The John le Carré estate is delighted to be celebrating the return of the Circus and George Smiley through these two new projects, Nick’s new novel and the first-ever stage play of one of John le Carré’s works coming to the West End.”
