Final novels from John le Carré and Andrea Camilleri, dark psychological debut Girl A and more
Silverview
John le Carré (Viking)
Le Carré’s final complete novel was published in October, in the week of what would have been his 90th birthday. Having made his fortune, Julian Lawndsley has left the City to run a bookshop in East Anglia, where a meeting with an eccentric Polish émigré and former spy draws him into a web of intrigue. The cast of characters, including several husband-and-wife spy pairings, are compromised by secrets, loyalties and allegiances both professional and familial, and no one, least of all the Service itself, is innocent. Valedictory, with a final turn of events that ends surprisingly but pleasingly in a cock-up, this is a satisfying coda to the career of the finest thriller writer of the 20th century.
Riccardino
Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli (Mantle)
Written in 2005, Camilleri’s final Inspector Montalbano novel was kept in a safe for publication after the author’s death, which occurred in 2019. Like its much loved predecessors, Riccardino is set in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata, but this time the increasingly tired and tetchy detective is joined by the author himself, who makes ever more far-fetched suggestions as to how the investigation into the death of the titular character should proceed. The absurdity mounts as the Catholic church persists in sticking its Jesuitical oar in and the revelations about the dead man’s private life grow ever more colourful. This novel is a fittingly exuberant last outing.
