September 5, 2017 --

The major article in The New York Times Book Review, August 28, by Sarah Lyall, did not review a book, but related the conversation that Ms. Lyall had with John le Carre (real name David Cornwell) and author Ben Macintyre, at lunch “in a private dining room at a boutique hotel in Bristol.” le Carre’s “A Legacy of Spies,“ is to be published this month.

Lyall calls it “a coda of sorts to ‘The Spy Who Came In From the Cold,’” le Carre’s third novel, published in 1963.

Lyall asked about “President Trump’s view of the truth.” LPR reqrets that le Carre did not seize the chance to point to Russia-gate as a scheme to frame President Trump, just as the earlier le Carre novel used Alec Leamas not to get revenge on a hated East German intelligence figure, but to protect him from disclosure at the hands of his East German rival.