Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre: book review

Agent Running in the Field (2019) is John Le Carre’s latest spy novel, set in 2019 in London, England, with a side visit to Karlovy Vary (formerly Carlsbad) in Bohemia, Czech Republic.

Lord Anatoly (Nat) is a 47-year-old spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service, awaiting to be made redundant. At a London club, 25-year-old-ish Edward Stanley Shannon (Ed), a researcher in a media agency, introduces himself and wants to play badminton with Nat, a champion player.

Instead of retirement, the service offers Nat a London-based job managing The Haven, a rundown Russian department. He needs to ask his wife Prue and 19-year-old daughter Stephanie first. When Nat accepts, he meets his work team: Igor a 65-year-old depressed Lithuanian, Marika who is Igor’s Estonian lover, and young members Florence, Denise, and Ilya.

Their first assignment is Florence’s idea, and is called Operation Rosebud.

While the operation is delayed, Nat continues weekly badminton games with Ed. Florence and Ed’s partially disabled sister Laura joins for a mixed doubles game. And Nat meets Sergei Borisovich Kuznetsov (codename Pitchfork), a sleeper agent, on another assignment.

Suddenly, Operation Rosebud is cancelled and Florence resigns immediately.

So, Nat is off to Karlovy Vary to see his former Georgian agent Arkady (codename Woodpecker), because, overnight, Pitchfork has become The Haven’s prize agent, and Operation Stardust is on.

But Ed is not who he says he is.

This is another great story from Le Carre, with great characters, plot, and writing. Especially Florence.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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