Le Carre to base novel on Iraq war

John le Carre, the British author of such classic Cold War thrillers as The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, is basing part of his next novel on the recent war against Iraq.

Absolute Friends, to be published early next year by Little, Brown and Company, is the story of rival spies during the Cold War who become “caught up in the fallout of the American war against Iraq”, according to a statement from Little, Brown.