Smiley’s People / John Le Carre

Smiley's People, the third and final novel in le Carré's Karla Trilogy, draws George Smiley out of retirement one last time. The murder of a former Soviet general has left a thread that leads, through patient investigation, toward Smiley's great adversary: the Soviet spymaster Karla, who has outmaneuvered British intelligence for decades. Le Carré constructs the final confrontation with the patience of a novelist who understands that the satisfactions of espionage fiction are not the same as the satisfactions of action thrillers.

Simon Vance narrates with the grey, cultivated authority le Carré's prose demands — a voice that carries the weight of institutional memory and professional disappointment that defines Smiley. The Los Angeles Times Book Prize recognition reflects the novel's standing, and Vance's performance gives the trilogy's conclusion its proper gravity. At nearly fourteen hours the audiobook rewards the whole trilogy's investment.