It is 1963 and, having retired from “the Circus”, spymaster George Smiley is looking forward to a trip abroad with his wife, Anne. But when a Soviet assassin has a sudden change of heart before murdering László Bánáti, a spy masquerading as a literary agent in London, Smiley finds himself back at work. He must find Bánáti and persuade him to become a British asset, a pursuit that leads him to an old foe.

Dreamed up as the unflashy antithesis of James Bond, Smiley is, of course, the creation of the late John le Carré. But in Karla’s Choice, he is brought to life by Nick Harkaway, Le Carré’s youngest son. Harkaway, who also completed 2021’s unfinished Silverview, writes in a style barely distinguishable from his father, save for some necessary tweaks – a faster pace and more believable female characters.

Our narrator is the actor Simon Russell Beale, who previously played Le Carré’s protagonist in a series of BBC radio plays. Russell Beale’s performance here is fluent yet understated, his Smiley preternaturally calm even when visiting his wife in Vienna and being informed by the hotel concierge that she is busy with her husband.

The audiobook also features a foreword written and narrated by Harkaway who acknowledges there will be fans who will deem his tackling Smiley as “absurd hubris”, despite Le Carré’s wish that there should be more books after his death. “My Smiley is my father’s but he’s also the Smiley we collectively inherit,” he notes. “The job is to produce a volume … that must move you, hold on to you and leave you wanting more.” Job done.

• Available via Penguin Audio, 10hr 42 min

Further listening

Say Everything
Ione Skye, HarperCollins, 8hr 38min
A coming-of-age memoir by the actor and daughter of folk icon Donovan. Read by the author.

Butcher
Joyce Carol Oates, Fourth Estate, 13hr 11min
A cast of narrators including Edoardo Ballerini and Amy Shiels read Oates’s fictional biography of a 19th-century doctor who conducts brutal experiments on female patients at a lunatic asylum.