Page Turners – April 2023 review

In April the Page Turners discussed ‘Silverview’ by John le Carré. This book was published posthumously in 2021. Unfortunately, we agreed that it was a book that we would be taking to a charity shop rather than recommending it to a friend or relative. So, it you do want to read it you know where to go!

The book weaves together the stories of Julian, who has left a high-paid job in the City of London to become a bookseller, Edward, an enigmatic Polish wheeler-dealer he befriends, and Proctor, a British intelligence official hunting down the source of a leak. Seemingly unrelated events and conversations come together at the end as a rather convoluted plot is resolved. Some of us read this book twice and still did not spot all the clues that would help us to understand what was going on. We admired le Carré’s use of language and the quality of the writing but for us that did not overcome the lack of characters and a story that we felt invested in.

Those of us that had read and enjoyed other le Carré books did not feel it was a fitting finale to his career. Those that had never previously read anything by this author did not feel inspired to try other works. All, however agreed that the point of a book club is to try new things and there was as much to talk about in a book we did not like as in one that we did.

Deborah Wallis