John Le Carré 2.0?

 Michael - Alternate Thursdays

 

Smiley and the Circus are back. No, it’s not a lost manuscript discovered after David Cornwall’s death, but a completely new novel written by Cornwall’s son Nicolas, who writes under the name Nick Harkaway. 

Harkaway is no beginner. He’s written seven other successful thriller-style novels with futuristic settings. I admit that I haven’t read any of them, but they were well received and one won an award and was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke award for the best science fiction novel of the year published in the UK. The recently released Karla’s Choice is his first excursion into the sixties and the labyrinthine world of cold war spies that his father so convincingly created.

Well, that’s not quite true. Harkaway finished the last Le Carré book, Silverview, after his father’s death. To me that ending felt rushed and somehow unsatisfying, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that Le Carré had left it unfinished. So I picked up Karla’s Choice with mixed feelings. I wanted to go back to that world, but I wanted to go there with John Le Carré. His sardonic writing and smooth yet gripping prose led to his books being among my favorites and always mentioned when I’m asked about the writers I admire and who influenced me. Obviously, Harkaway was very close to Le Carré and no doubt knew more than the ordinary reader about the world of Smiley’s Circus, but would that be enough? Harkaway recognizes the problem. In his introduction to the book he writes:

“There will be people who love the book whatever it is, because their attachment to George Smiley and the Circus is so deep that any slight touch of his hand is enough to bring them joy. There will be others who, for the exact same reason, cannot conceive of reading it and whose hackles rise at the mention of my absurd hubris.”

Gary Oldman as George Smiley

I finished the book last night so I suppose I haven’t digested it completely yet. The plot is intriguing. Susanna, a refugee from Hungary after the Russian invasion of 1956, is the PA to a literary agent in London. One morning she arrives to discover he is not at work and shortly thereafter a man who identifies himself as a Russian assassin sent to kill her employer arrives. He has an epiphany when he sees her, believing (incorrectly) that Susanna is his daughter sent by God to make him change his ways. It seemed a rather unlikely start to a spy thriller and some of the writing seemed strained as though a different type of book was intended. But after that, either Harkaway got more into the period and his father’s style or I became more used to his different way of writing. Things seemed to flow. Control and Smiley felt right.

Naturally, the Circus is interested in the assassin. They are even more interested in the man he was sent to kill who has completely disappeared. Smiley badly wants to know why, and who the man really is. Slowly the connection with Karla, the head of the Moscow Central spy ring emerges. That eventually leads to an excellent climax in Hungary itself.

I struggled a bit with the sections concerning Smiley and his wife Ann. In the Le Carré books, this is always at arm’s length. Harkaway tries to develop the closeness between them and the distance. Somehow the former never quite convinced me. But generally the characters felt real and felt like Le Carré’s characters.

If Le Carré himself had written Karla’s Choice, I would probably be a bit disappointed. Maybe I would have given it four stars out of five. But four stars out of five is a very high rating on the Le Carré scale!

To sum up – would I recommend the book to fans of Le Carré’s Circus? Yes, I would. Would I read another Harkaway Smiley novel? Yes. It won’t be Le Carré’s writing, but Harkaway has the skill and style to pull off a posthumous Circus series if he wants to.

A Twisting Trail to Kodagu, aka Coorg

 Sujata Massey

Has a place name caught your ear and not let it go? I have always felt that way about the region in Karnataka called Coorg. The name of the hill station is so unusual. It’s mysterious, while still being easy to remember.  

This past January, I finally reached Coorg and learned that the name has roots in colonialism alone. In the 1830s, when the British deposed the local Raja, they swiftly annexed the land and renamed the place called Kodagu, which has civilization dating back to India’s Sangam period, 300 BCE. The land known as Coorg was incorporated into the new state of Karnataka in 1956. Today, Kodagu is the district’s official name, but Coorg is what lots of people still say and write. The area is known for deep green mountains, coffee plantations, and people who are incredibly warm—and physically strong. The regional identity is defined by its minority indigenous community called the Kodava, people who may have originally come as Kurdish exiles from Iraq or with the military forces of Alexander the Great. To this day, the Kodavas are admired for their skills in hunting and military service.

We came from Mysore by car for a two-day visit. The first driving hour was easy on smooth roads. The last two hours were a stomach-testing, bumpy and twisty journey into the beautiful green hills. 

When we got out of the car at the Coorg Wilderness Resort, I realized we had entered the coldest place I’d ever experienced in India, with temperatures in the fifties and sixties daytime. I wrapped up in my cashmere shawl and kept it on for the rest of the stay. 

Monkeys were everywhere! The clever girl photographed below became our frenemy.  She waited near the suite till we were gone and then jumped down from the roof to our balcony and turned the handle of the closed door to go inside. Indoors, she located a closed can of almonds with a picture of the nuts on the can. She skillfully ripped off the metal lid, devoured the almonds and scampered through the suite, enjoying herself, until she was shooed out by the arriving cleaner. Even after the crime, she lingered near our door, giving cool stares that reminded Tony and me that she had rights to the place

 

I’d seen the resort in brochures and online photographs and thought from its appearance that it was a renovated coffee plantation. My eyes had fooled me. The property was just a few years old but built in a convincingly traditional style and furnished with neo-Victorian furniture and textiles. Most rooms were a steep hill walk down from the reception building and hotels, but little electric carts whizzed about by young local drivers took care of any exhausting climbs, especially at night. The hotel buildings were painted cheerful red. Guest suites were almost all located up flights of stairs and had private balconies and terraces overlooking the rolling hills. At least part of my guess was correct: the vast lands included a small coffee plantation with beans being grown, roasted and shared with other properties in their group, the Paul John Hotels. 

 

The food was extremely tasty, with most of the fare South Indian. Large buffet meals were included in most people’s room packages, but we found the hotel’s small restaurant that specialized in Kodava dishes, very enjoyable, both for the food and the company of local people. Local mushrooms, greens, and bamboo shoots were combined in curries that made an intriguing meal that seemed to taste of the mountains. 

Hiking, swimming in a pool, visiting the hotel’s farm and learning about coffee production were all offered as activities. Most of the resorts’ clients were multigenerational Indian families. While climbing uphill on a hike to the lookout point shown above, I fell sharply and was worried my throbbing quadricep would prevent me from walking back downhill. One of the tourist families had chartered an all-terrain vehicle going along the same rough path and gave me a seat, for which I was extremely grateful. For the next eight days traveling in India, my bruised thigh slowly healed.  

Fortunately, I was still mobile enough to walk short distances. In nearby Madikeri, Tony and I visited a fort dating from the early 1600s that, during British occupation of the early 1800s through 1947, was used for administration, as well as a small Anglican church. Strolling through this church, we studied a plaque engraved with names of British parishioners who’d left the paradise of Coorg to fight and ie in the World Wars. No longer used for services, the small Gothic building had become a museum of Indian history, with cases filled with local archaeological finds, many of them stone tablets and statues of Hindu and local deities. 

One of India’s most distinguished military combat officers, General Kodendera Subayya Thimayya, came from a Kodava coffee plantation-owning family. The general, who was known in his youth as Dubbu to his family, became “Timmy” to the British and the outside world. Gen. Thimayya studied at the Bishop Cotton boarding school in Bangalore, the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College, and finally at the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, where he was one of only six Indian cadets. During World War II, Timmy was the only Indian who commanded an Infantry brigade; after the British left, he rose in the Indian Army, becoming the 3^rd Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army from 1957 to 1961. He retired and then served as Commander of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus, where he died of heart attack while on active duty at the age of 59.  

It was delightful to talk with a retired soldier manning the visitor desk at Gen. Thimayya’s childhood home in Madikeri, which is now a museum. I enjoyed walking through and getting the sense of what a wealthy planter’s home was like. I was pleased to see a room devoted to information about the general’s wife, Nina, who was an accomplished dancer and had lived in France before their marriage, and other rooms had displays that told stories about his siblings and his children. The Thimayya house was one of the best sightseeing opportunities in Kodagu, which really doesn’t have the multiple temples, museums and shops in most Indian tourist destinations. Truly, the place is about being away from the world and in nature’s embrace.

In the center of Madikeri town, we sampled delicious cappuccino from local beans and deliberated over the varieties of coffee we would buy and share with friends as we traveled on in India.

It was sad to watch our last sunset from the balcony at the Wilderness Resort. But the long ride down from the mountains had another excitement in store: the Namdroling Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist refuge and learning center. The monastery was built in 1963 when the Tibetans were welcomed to India after Chinese persecution. 

The initial structure for the monastery was just bamboo, and the early monks had to fend of wild animals as they built in the jungle. The community raised money and have built the monastery into a gilded, impressive complex for monks and their families. The day we visited, many monks seemed to be hastening away down the road from the monastery. When we came upon police cars closing off the exit, we learned that the Dalai Lama was visiting for a few days, and the monks were going to meet him. No such chance for us; but we considered it a brush with greatness and another example of how Kodagu might appear like a sleepy mountain hideaway, yet have a powerful impact in the larger world.  

Yearnings for books and soft serve ice cream--

Ovidia--every other Tuesday 'The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes'--Agatha Christie

Though this may not have been her idea of 'doing' dishes!

Aren't they pretty though? Both Lent and Ramadan are currently being observed in Singapore, so I've been trying to dedicate my afternoon break hour to fasting and reflection.

I know that right now people elsewhere in the world are living under the constant threat of air strikes, starvation or deportation and it feels almost wrong to be living in comfort--even the writing is going well, though I'm here writing this instead of dumping today's quota of words into the Tembusu Tree.

I was reading about Beauty World, a market and food centre that was opened in 1947, the year my current WIP is set in.
It was at the junction of Upper Bukit Timah Road and Jalan Jurong Kechil, in addition to over a hundred stalls that sold everything from fresh and preserved foods to cleaning supplies, hell money, textiles and stationery, it was also a well known venue for getai performances during the Hungry Ghost Month.
Since those days and after several fires, today there's the Beauty World MRT Station, Beauty World Shopping Centre and Beauty World Plaza.
It's a side of Singapore that most tourists and visitors don't see, because it's not posh and developed enough for high end travellers and not historical/ traditional enough for those who come looking for 'authentic' Asia.
It's just an area where locals go to shop for cheap good food and supplies--or a haircut or massage.

On my last visit I found a new shop (source of the pretty bowls above)

I'm not just writing about it because I love soft serve ice cream. I also loved the owner/ manager Mark's good energy. According to him, Pompette is currently the only handcrafted soft serve ice cream outlet in Singapore. (Fastfood chains like McDonalds and Burger King use a pre-mix).
It was like a wake up nudge for me. I like soft serve ice cream, so I grumble about the lack of soft serve ice cream in Singapore.

This man likes soft serve ice cream, notes the lack of soft serve ice cream in Singapore, and starts a soft ice cream business.

It wasn't a simple matter of buying into a franchise either. He studied ice cream making and invested in these machines...

I heard these machines cost 50K--meaning I'm not likely to get one for home use any time soon. Luckily I live close by!

But the lesson I felt I was being pointed to was: when I'm unhappy about not having access to the things I want in my life (everything from the books I want to have written to the arm balances I want to have mastered) I should go out and study all there is to learn about them then plunge into the practical learning process.

Because that's the only way to produce the crafted from scratch books/ ice cream that you want--

Matcha Green Tea and Chocolate

Thai Milk Tea and Meiji Milk with Mango compote

Yes, the Thai Milk Tea was a little sludgier than it should be, but the shop is less than a year old and still working out their recipes.
And I would rather have a softer than it should be rough draft of a book than no draft at all! Especially a book that I make myself out of personally sourced fresh ingredients instead of pre-mix powder!

And another nice thing was, coming out of the shop and looking down into the atrium I saw this pop up secondhand bookshop offering--

and there were lots of people browsing not only the books on display here but the mysteries, romances and 'literary' books on the shelves underneath the floor we were on.
Yes, I went down there and found copies of three of my books.
And yes, it made me happy to see them there--because much as it would be lovely to make millions in royalties, it would also be fantastic to have something I write prompt someone to open up or write about their own ice cream dreams one day.

'Crime fiction is a mirror of society.' Martin Edwards in The Golden Age of Murder
Maybe we can change society just a little, by changing what we show in the mirrors we hold up to it.

Of Effort and Grace

Annamaria on Monday

I made a big mistake, and I am paying for it.  When I left Italy at the beginning of this month, I carefully saved the  file for my WIP, and when I arrived back in NYC, I took up the draft again, adding to it. At least that was what I thought I was doing. In the process, I discovered that I had been working on two files, and that neither of them was completely up to date.  Matters got worse when I discovered a third version on my desk top that never made the trip.  UGH!

I didn't waste a lot of time mourning my loss.  For most of my life, "Just Keep Working" has been my answer in the face of adversity.  After two long days of working toward stitching the best parts back in order, I am three quarters of the way to where I thought I was three weeks ago.  Once I have the drafted chapters in the best possible shape, actual progress will ensue.  That's the plan.  And so, for this week on MIE, I offer you the best bits of one of my very first posts when I joined MIE as regular in 2013.

My thoughts about making art/entertainment and making it look easy:  

The actor Paul Newman once described in an interview an encounter he had with Spencer Tracy.  Newman was a young actor; the director of a movie allowed him to hang around the studio set in LA while Tracy was working.  One day, Tracy approached Newman and said, “They tell me you want to be an actor.”  Newman mumbled an affirmative answer.  Tracy grasped him by the shoulder and said, “Don’t ever let anyone catch you doing it.”

You couldn’t see Tracy doing it in this courtroom scene:

And when Newman got his turn, he followed Tracy’s advice.  Here is Newman in court:

THE prime example of making art look effortless is, of course, the dancing of Fred Astaire.  In his movies, his dances are shown with only one or two cuts.  Unlike more recent films where most dance sequences have more to do with editing, Astaire’s movies show him in performance.  To achieve this, Astaire did not just show up one day and wing it.  He typically rehearsed for three months before getting  in front of the camera.   He put day upon day of effort into perfecting dances that were going to be seen only on film, where they could be edited and re-edited.  But Astaire practiced them until he could dance them this effortlessly:

 

 To me, this is the very essence of grace.  (That's Eleanor Powell with him, by the way; no slouch she!)  Enormous work has gone in.  The performers have invested such heart, such determination, that the effort disappears, and all that the world sees is the unselfconscious art.

 

My motto: Work Conquers All

Here is one of my favorite ever reviews.  Of my first novel, for me it was the ultimate compliment.  

"Alfieri effortlessly recreates 17th-century Peru in her impressive debut... The author nicely balances action and deduction in a mystery that works as a political thriller as well as a historical whodunit."
- Publishers Weekly

It's back to work for me!

 

Greece's Independence Day is Upon Us ... Come Tuesday

 Jeff--Saturday

March 25^th marks the 204^th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, when Greek Orthodox Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the Greek flag at the Monastery of Agia Lavra in Greece’s Peloponnese and inspired a more than eight-year struggle (1821-1829) to throw off nearly 400 years of Ottoman rule.

 

Bishop Germanos

In towns and villages across Greece, school children proudly parade the country’s blue and white flag.  Aflutter, the flag is reminiscent of Greek seas but it holds a deeper meaning.  The white cross honors the contribution of the church to the country’s enduring battle for freedom and its nine blue and white bars honor the nine-syllable rallying call shouted across the land during Greece’s struggle for Independence: Eleftheria i Thanatos—Freedom or Death.  (Though some say they represent the nine letters of ελευθερια in the Greek word for freedom, the idea is the same.)  Greece’s larger cities would also hold military parades, with Greek communities around the world joining in hosting parades of their own. 

But this is not about any of those events, or for that matter whether the Revolution actually began a week earlier in another part of the Peloponnese when the ruler of its Mani region, Petros Mavromichalis, raised his war flag in Mani’s capital city of Areopoli and marched his troops off against the Turks. 

 

Petros Mavromihalis

No, this is about a small Cycladic island’s personal War of Independence heroine, Manto Mavrogenous (1796-1848).  Her statue stands at the foot of the main square on Mykonos’ harbor, and on each March 25^th surrounded by palm fronds—an ancient symbol of triumph, victory, and the sacred sign of Apollo—in honor of a life truly worthy of an epic film.  Or a tragic opera.

 

Born in Trieste to a wealthy, aristocratic Greek merchant family, Manto Mavrogenous studied philosophy and history, was fluent in several languages, and drew her fire for Greek independence from her father, a member of Filiki Eteria, the secret society dedicated to freeing Greece from Ottoman rule.

 

She was thirteen when her family returned to its roots in the Cycladic islands, first to Paros and after her father’s death to Tinos.  War broke out when she was twenty-five and she left for Mykonos, the place of her family’s origins, to convince its leaders to join in the Revolution.  But what she offered Mykonos and indeed all of Greece was far more than words.  When Ottomans attempted to land on Mykonos, she commanded the forces that repelled them.  She used her fortune to outfit ships and crews that battled pirates and the Ottoman fleet, and to send soldiers to fight for freedom on mainland Greece, as well as to support the families of those who fought. 

 

Manto Mavrogenous

Manto even sold her jewelry to support the fight and pressed the world to allow Greece to be free.  This is from her letter to The Women of Paris: “The Greeks, born to be liberal, will owe their independence only to themselves.  So I don’t ask your intervention to force your compatriots to help us. But only to change the idea of sending help to our enemies.”

 

Demetrius Ypsilantis

In the early years of the war she met Demetrius Ypsilantis, a well-educated son of a prominent family, brother of the leader of Filiki Eteria, and a politically connected war hero.  (Yes, that city in Michigan was named after him, a town perhaps better known today for “the world’s most phallic building,” the Ypsilanti Water Tower.)  They became engaged and Mavrogenous’ beauty, bravery, and selfless commitment to Greek independence brought her fame across Europe.

 

The "Brick Dick" of Ypsilanti with bust of Demetrius in front

It seemed a fairy tale, but that was not to be.

 

During their engagement Mavrogenous’ home was totally destroyed by fire and her fortune stolen.  She moved in with Ypsilanti but in time he broke off the engagement.  Deeply depressed and virtually penniless, she never recovered.

 

Her memoirs were written on Mykonos but she spent most of the balance of her life amid poverty in Greece’s first modern capital, Nafplio, before finally moving to Paros where she died penurious and in oblivion at fifty-four.

 

The great debts owed to her for financing so much of Greece’s Revolution were never repaid.  Unless you count the palms, thanks, and honors bestowed each March 25.

 

The back of a Greek coin worth less than a penny

Freedom or Death.

 

––Jeff

 

Events

2025

All Live Events

Wednesday, April 2, 6:00 p.m. ET
Mysterious Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
New York, NY

Sunday, April 6, 2:00 p.m. PT
Book Carnival
Author Speaking and Signing
Orange, CA

Sunday, April 13, 2:00 p.m. MT
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
Author Speaking and Signing
Scottsdale, AZ

Friday, April 25, 7:00 p.m.
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Author Speaking and Signing
Pittsburgh, PA

Sunday, May 4, 2:00 p.m. ET
Sparta Public Library
Author Speaking and Signing
Sparta, NJ

Thursday, May 15 – Sunday, May 18
CrimeFest
Author Panels yet to be assigned
Bristol, UK

Wednesday, September 3 – Sunday, September 7
Bouchercon
Author Panels yet to be assigned
New Orleans, LA

William Wallace; Braveheart

As regular readers of this blog may recall, William Wallace was born at the end of my garden, in the village of Elderslie,  home of the Royal Stewarts.  I'm not sure what we know of him is actually true. how much has been fabricated and how much was Mel Gibson, but Wallace is given a good strapline when he needs one.

I'm sure he did say some of these things, I doubt he  said them in these exact words given the way that language evolves, and nobody had a mobile phone handy to record it.

Here are some quotes with  pictures of the monument in the centre of the village. In one you can see the village postie having a quick puff.

Whether or not you agree with politics, the quotes, even if vaguely accurate, give you the measure of his leadership and his statesmanship.

Yesterday the UK foreign office issues updated guidelines on travel to.... the USA.

 

We all end up dead, it's just a question of how and why.

All men die, but not all men really live.

There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it

I have been given nothing. God makes men what they are.

Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history or denies them their symbols, has sown the seeds of their own destruction.

I cannot be a traitor, since I never swore fealty to the English king.

Incompetence is often highly regarded in governmental circles.

I tell ye true, liberty is the best of all things; never live beneath the noose of a servile halter.

Truth is truth, even when told by a liar.

Deep in the human heart

The fire of justice burns;

A vision of a world renewed

Through radical concern.

 

Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won. Then never live within the Bond of Slavery.

The god that you believe in, and the god that I believe in, maybe different gods; however, the God that made you, and the God that made me, They are the same God.

I have brought you to the ring, now dance if you can! 

Now tell me, what does that mean to be noble? Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don't follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble, and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to freedom, they'd follow you. And so would I

We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free.