Penguin Random House’s Viking/Penguin Books imprint will publish A Legacy of Spies, a new work by renowned espionage novelist John le Carré, on September 5. Le Carré was represented in the deal by Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown

A Legacy of Spies will feature, for the first time in 25 years, the career intelligence officer George Smiley, who is one of le Carré's most popular characters.

In the novel, Smiley—along with his colleague Peter Guillam, aka The Circus, and other operatives at the British Secret Service—is being investigated by a new generation of intelligence managers. Viking said the novel "interweaves past with present" and ultimately spins "a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy."