As The Taper Man hits the shelves today, 5th November 2026, reviews are beginning to appear in the press. Here are a few we've seen so far, and we'll add more as they come in.
Jake Kerridge in The Daily Telegraph writes: 'Harkaway has done a brilliant job of recreating some of his father's best-loved characters ... his prose has the splendid muscularity of his father's, and he shares le Carré's confident ability to lay down exactly how the world works, even though here it's a world that largely existed before he was born ... I have my doubts about the worth of "continuation" novels in general, but it's hard not to see a project as meretricious when it inspires an author to write this well.'
The Scotsman's Stuart Kelly says: '[An] undiluted delight ... Having Smiley in America allows some stereoscopic ingenuity ... I tip my hat as well to [the] period detail ... If the BBC wants a new Smiley series, look at Harkaway.'
Buzz Magazine: 'A multi-layered, complex spy thriller in which if you blink you might miss a trick, The Taper Man is another near-perfect continuation of the le Carré legacy pulled out of the bag by Harkaway.'
The review in The Spectator by Andrew Rosenheim is also just in. 'The writing throughout is evocative and adroit ...'
And in The Irish Mail on Sunday: 'George Smiley, subtlest of spies, lives again thanks to Nick Harkaway's assiduous reimagining of his father's fictional universe ... This is a painstaking, deliberate investigation that flares brilliantly into action in its thrilling final stages.'