The Spy Who Came (and Came and Came and Came)

They had to really believe in their principles to live with themselves and serve their country less. Do I need to read the other 2 proceeding books first? Stephen Sanders You don't have to. The events of his first book, Call for the Dead, are frequently referenced in the Spy Who Came in from the Cold, but are summarized …more You don't have to.

The events of his first book, Call for the Dead, are frequently referenced in the Spy Who Came in from the Cold, but are summarized so you don't need to have read it. However, it's a solid mystery and a quick read so there's no reason not to read it first. It's also interesting to see how Le Carre's style evolved between the two books. Le Carre's second novel, A Murder of Quality, on the other hand, is a mediocre mystery novel with a plot that has no relation to this book. Lists with This Book. I am irritated at myself for having postponed the pleasure of reading this magnificent book for so many years, and yet I am exhilarated and excited too, marked by this unqualified encounter with greatness.

But they are much—oh, so much—more. In the course of this tale of a complex double-agent operation, which he tells in a style that somehow combines both cold rage and white heat, Le Carre reveals the heartlessness of British Intelligence—and, by implication, of all intelligence systems—which will not hesitate to crush the innocent and betray its own in pursuit of secrecy and success.

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No matter whose side they are on, or what their particular goals may be, there can be no heroes in this dirty, duplicitous game. Instead I think of the great writers of the English language: Conrad the bitter isolation of the characters , Koestler the fierce subtlety of the interrogations , and Orwell the bleak vision of the state. And yet—this is part of what makes the book great— The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is an excellent spy story too, with an intricate plot which will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

Yes, Le Carre offers the reader of spy stories everything he could wish for. View all 44 comments. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? John Le Carre A. He worked as a consul code for spy for the British Embassy in Germany and that is where he saw something that would spur the creation of the most influential spy novel of all time.

I had flown from Bonn to take a look at it as soon as it started going up. I was not aware I had been grinning, so it must have been one of those soupy grins that comes over me at dreadfully serious moments. There was certainly nothing but disgust and terror, which was exactly what I was supposed to feel: Smiley is in this novel as well, a shadowy figure behind the scenes which is where he works best. He can pull strings, and at the same time smooth the path, dropping just the right amount of crumbs to lead enemies into making assumptions.

When Spy is published and it stays on the US bestseller list for over a year all pretenses of anonymity are replaced with the exact opposite Le Carre has an interest in secrets. He wants to understand them, and the need that people have to keep them. I recently ordered a book on the Kray Twins because I must know more. Reginald and Ronald Kray Spying and committed fraud are not so far apart on the scale of unsavory professions, so those aspects that may have made Ronnie a con artist are exactly the same attributes that made his son a good spy.

So Smiley is relegated to the shadows and in the forefront is Alec Leamas. His eyes were brown and small; Irish, some said. It was hard to place Leamas. If he were to walk into a London club the porter would certainly not mistake him for a member; in a Berlin night club they usually gave him the best table. He looked like a man who could make trouble, a man who looked after his money, a man who was not quite a gentleman. Leamas was head of the Berlin branch until too many things went wrong. His network of spies had been dismantled one by one by his arch enemy Mundt, head of the East German Intelligence.

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When I say dismantled I mean dead and by dead I mean murdered. Leamas is recalled to London where in a meeting with Control, head of the Circus; and of course, Smiley is there, a plan is hatched to bring Mundt down. It is going to have to take a con, not the short con, but the long con. First step, he must begin drinking copious amounts of alcohol, not a hard chore given his penchant for heavy drinking anyway. Second, they find him a job shelving books in a library a job so mundane for most people you know The plan goes slightly awry when he meets Liz, who also works at the library.

Later when he is at one of his bleakest moments behind the Iron Curtain he realizes that Liz has given him something to hope for beyond just the success of this mission. Claire Bloom stars as Liz in the movie. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the seagulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it; he would make Liz find it for him. The diabolical thing about Smiley is that what seems random is simply a carefully planned roll of loaded dice. As the pieces of plot fall into place my respect for Smiley continues grow right along with a leeriness of ever wanting my fate in his hands.

Being a weighed risk before men such as Control, Smiley, or Mundt is like waiting for a judgment from Pontius Pilate. Though this is a short book the plot is heavy, forcing the reader to pay close attention, to ponder each revelation, and still be left at the end with doubts about who among the main players pulled the final string. This was a reread and a rewatch for me, but so much water has went under the bridge that much of it was new again or at least being seen, being read, with older, hopefully wiser eyes. The movie is faithful to the book.

The overall impact of this novel on the genre is hard to calculate, but it is impossible to deny that this book set the bar high for all writers who try to write a better one. View all 59 comments. Fans of intellectual spy espionage novels. Recommended to Paula by: Earlier this year I read A Legacy of Spies, written in by Le Carre, so it made so much sense to dive into his classic Cold War novel as a follow-up. The author, who worked for British Intelligence, brings so much authenticity to his novels.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is gritty with superb dialogue. There is no loss to plenty of twists and turns. It also shows that good and bad are not so clear-cut. I listened to the e-audio which is narrated by the formidable Brian Cox, an Emmy award winning Scottish actor. View all 26 comments. Nov 18, Lyn rated it really liked it. I have actually seen a musical on Broadway Rock of Ages and I was impressed. But this was something else entirely. I was awestruck by the talent: As you may imagine, this was not my usual forte.

Oh, I can walk across a room and avoid dragging my knuckles most days but for the most part a presentation of this sort is beyond me; but I can at least acknowledge the virtuosity of a performance, even if it is not in a medium to which I am normally accustomed. Spy novels, likewise, are not in a genre to which I am inclined. This is simply a very well written book. Add to that the psychological depth and the labyrinthine twists and turns of the interactions between east and west operatives and there is little doubt why this novel has collected such accolades.

A book that rises above its labeled genre and becomes simply a brilliant story. Le Carre could have described competing stationary merchants and this would have been interesting. Most impressive is that Le Carre eschews convention, deliberately rejects Hollywood sentimentality and tells this straight. He makes his case as it should be, as it must be. View all 20 comments. Oct 28, Jaline rated it it was amazing Shelves: It was his breakthrough novel and 50 years later he was still telling people it had nothing to do with his previous job in the Secret Service; that it was a figment of his imagination only; that had it been based on any facts whatsoever, it would never have been allowed into publication.

None of that registered at the time with the media and critics. And those old rumours still hang in shabby tatters to this day. He also said that where the world saw a spy who became a writer, the reality is that he was always a writer first and happened to be in the spy business — on a low rung of the ladder — until he could manage to get by on his writing. And maybe I might not have been so quick to believe him 50 years ago; I may not have. I do believe him now, though, and if you read the Foreward, you will likely believe him, too.

This novel is the first one that details an actual operation. George Smiley plays a peripheral role as most of the story revolves around Alec Leamas. Another one of his people has been killed and he is getting tired of it. The pace of this novel is fast — very fast. He is just that good. The ending could have been happier, and I probably would have written it a bit differently.

View all 56 comments. A profound book, that surpassed all my expectations. A hell of a ride from the first page till the last word. It's a cold and dark book which is written very intelligently. It was hailed as one of the best among the world's top classic espionage-books ever written. And, now that I see in hindsight, it has truly surpassed all the spy thrillers, in terms of quality and scope, that I've read before reading this one; and it has now climbed the ladder to reach the top - in my all time favorite list.

H A profound book, that surpassed all my expectations. View all 4 comments.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - Wikipedia

And I did not even have any expectations towards it. But calling it "the best spy novel ever", as so many reviewers have done, is a teensy bit far-stretched. I don't have much to say about this book. If you want to read it because you expect action and thrill and incredible escape plans or impossible heists, you better move on to the next book.

If there was any action, we only hear of it after it has already happened, through reports and dialogues. The characters are overall bland, especially the female love interest, who, of course, is roughly 20 years younger than the main character.

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She only exists so she can sit prettily and cry a lot. It was a severely well-plotted story, no doubt, but it failed to spark any intrigue from my side. The coolest thing about it is the cover design. Find more of my books on Instagram I think if I had lived through more of the Cold War I would have enjoyed this book more. Even though it is not a very long book, I found it somewhat slow. Also, it was a fairly complicated story that had me confused and going back to figure out if I missed something. I may have given it two stars, but the ultimate point and climax of the story was interesting.

I kept having to clear my mind and put myself back into the serious mentality of the Cold War. It was much darker and convoluted than that. Having the Berlin Wall as a locale a few times in the book definitely stressed the intensity of the time period. If you like serious historical fiction, post WWII cold war tales, and don't mind your characters grittier than James Bond, I think you will enjoy this one a lot. There are no car chases, gadgets, tuxedos, martini's, or large breasted women walking out of the ocean throwing their long locks back over their pretty faces.

It's a boring way to make a living, but someone has to do it right?. Cut adrift he turns to the bottle and tries to make some sort of a normal life for himself, with little funds he takes a job in a library, befriends a fellow worker called Liz, and they strike up an affection for each other. Paranoid, always glancing over his shoulder, he gets the sense of being followed, and here it conjures up images of shady looking individuals, with turned up collars on their dark coloured macs walking through fog, sounding echos coming from footsteps on wet tarmac, yes it really is this way.

And after agreeing to return to Germany with other figures of intelligence he appears to turn defector through a friendly interrogation to his previous work, giving up names, banks, phoney passports and members of his organization whilst stationed in East Germany. But of course with this type of setting, nothing is as it it seems, there may or may not be, double crossings, set-ups, and lies within our midst!

On the surface the story is pretty basic and easy to follow, but deep within this novel there is so much more going on, that not always makes a whole lot of sense, it's not a case of joining all the dots at the end, although you can look at it this way, it's the taut and murky characters that really get you thinking, how you interpret their actions, and just what is going on behind the scenes, because sometimes it's not so much what's written in front of you, but where this world exists off the pages that truly makes for an authentic reading experience.

Graham Greene quotes it as the best spy novel ever written, who am I to argue. View all 6 comments. Oct 02, Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing Shelves: It is chilling as cold as the title and realistic and hair-raising. View all 8 comments. Apr 23, Stephen rated it it was amazing Shelves: Okay to begin this review I want to point out that, except for a number of Tom Clancy novels, I have only read a handful of spy thrillers so what impressed me about this book may be pretty typical stuff in the better works of the genre.

Also, I have not seen the movie adaptation based and knew nothing about the plot coming in a condition I highly recommend if you have the chance. For a book published in , once you get past s 4. For a book published in , once you get past some obvious anachronisms e. I was absolutely captivated from the opening scene to the incredible ending and I highly recommend this book. The plot deals with a British case officer working in West Berlin who, after losing his last agent operating in East Berlin, returns to London and contemplates retirement.

However, his superiors have one last assignment for him and one for which his current state of mind is ideal for. From here, this tightly woven, brilliantly executed plot moves at an incredibly fast pace and is filled with superb twists, amazing dialogue and great characters, all of which blur the lines between good and bad. Bottom-line, this was a great read that packed a very enjoyable, detailed story in its slim, svelte pages.

I listened to the audio version of this book read by Frank Muller one of my favorite narrators who tragically passed away a few years ago and thought he did a superb job and added to the enjoyment of the story. View all 12 comments. I hate everything about spies and spying, whether it's the stupid raised-eyebrow-perfect-martini-black-tied begadgeted supermodel-is-in-the-shower my-name-is-Bollocks, James Bollocks nonsense or the miserable version: So I read this one by John Le Carre who is like the Raymond Chandler of spy books like everyone reads them even if they hate their genres, like some people go on about Bix Beiderbecke who actually hate jazz and some other people bought one non-rock cd in their entire life and it was the Buena Vista Social Club; only Raymond Chandler was a god and he was funny.

John le Carre - not so funny. Well it was okay. It didn't light my sandals on fire or make me hire a van with a PA system to go riding around town extolling its virtues. Which is something I do with books I like a lot, I've been fined so many times for it, but I think it's worth it. But it was who is the mole you are the mole I am the mole we are all moles but the mole is not the mole.

Can't tell one from the other. View all 14 comments. Oct 15, Kemper rated it really liked it Shelves: We used to HATE those guys! James Bond was in full literary swing and just beginning his cinematic career, and most people in the western nations still trusted their governments and believed that their spies were the good guys who would hold back those dirty Commies with sheer moral superiority.

It had to have been a hell of a shock to read a novel like this from a writer who had worked for British intelligence who convincingly told a story where the conflict between the two sides was a series of elaborate con games about either hiding what you knew or tricking the other guy into believing a lie. And as demonstrated here, both sides fully believed that the ends justified the means.

Rereading: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

Alec Leamas is with the British intelligence service nicknamed the Circus and runs their operations in West Berlin. Leamas is recalled by the Circus back to London where he is offered a dangerous new assignment. The Circus demotes Leamas. He pretends to become a disgruntled drunk who eventually loses his job and his pension, and he briefly gets sent to prison after assaulting someone.

The ploy is to make the other side think that Leamas is ripe to turn on the Circus so that they can plant false intelligence and get back at Mundt. However, Leamas may have made a critical mistake by actually falling in love while playing a drunken disgrace. Even with nearly 50 years worth of spy stories after this using similar plots, this book still had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. View all 5 comments. Dec 09, Emily May rated it it was amazing Shelves: I'd like to start by saying "woah" and various other exclamations of surprise and wonder.

This was a book that completely changed the way I view spy novels. My previous prejudice stems from quite an obvious source - Ian Fleming - who never gave me anything much of what I would want to read about or what I even find remotely interesting. Big guns, fast cars, hot girls Fleming , like most writers of spy novels, caters e I'd like to start by saying "woah" and various other exclamations of surprise and wonder.

Fleming , like most writers of spy novels, caters exclusively for the straight male reader.

His books were never intended to be read by women because in real life women don't fall back with their legs in the air for every guy in a tux who says "shaken, not stirred". And, yes, there is a point hidden somewhere amidst the waffle John le Carre is a genius, an inventive and wonderful writer. I effin loved this book Alec didn't waste his time drinking martinis and shagging his way through the women of Europe, he had emotion and he had personality.

Alec Leamas would run rings around James Bond any day and in every way possible. Written in , it was inevitably entwined with the Cold War and the darkest side of East German Intelligence. And I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I simply adored it Highly recommended, even to you chick-lit lovers who will automatically think "no thanks", trust me you want to give this one a chance. Economical in words, rough, laconic.

Intricate plot, agents, double agents, cat-and-mouse game. Feelings of burnout, cynicism and hopelessness. Atmosphere of a constant threat and fatigue, melancholic gray London, claustrophobic East Berlin. Everything written in harsh almost impersonal prose what only deepens the feeling of coldness in human relations. Once again we meet our old friends: George Smiley, Peter Guillam and Control; though they are not playing the leading roles here.

Prepare yourself that sometimes there is no escape from the cold. This is a different kind of spy novel, a smart one with a brilliant plot and some exciting twists. There are no hot dudes drinking martinis with a women on each leg, shooting every terrorist in sight. Their intimate relationship facilitated the plan. Liz realizes to her horror that their actions have enabled the Circus to protect their asset, the despicable Mundt, at the expense of the thoughtful and idealistic Fiedler. Liz asks what will become of Fiedler; Leamas replies that he will most likely be executed.

Liz's love for Leamas overcomes her moral disgust, and she accompanies Leamas to a break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall , from which they can climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. Leamas climbs to the top but, as he reaches down to help Liz, she is shot by Mundt operatives to avoid any possible suspicion of Leamas' escape. She falls and as Smiley calls out to Leamas from the other side of the wall, he hesitates. Then he climbs back down the Eastern side of the wall, to be shot and killed too.

At its publication during the Cold War —91 , the moral presentation of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold rendered it a revolutionary espionage novel by showing the intelligence services of both the Eastern and Western nations as engaging in the same expedient amorality in the name of national security. The espionage world of Alec Leamas portrays love as a three-dimensional emotion that can have disastrous consequences for those involved. Good does not always vanquish evil in Leamas's world, a defeatist attitude that was criticised in The Times. Time magazine, while including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in its top novels list, [1] stated that the novel was "a sad, sympathetic portrait of a man who has lived by lies and subterfuge for so long, he's forgotten how to tell the truth.

Paramount Television and The Ink Factory—who had previously produced The Night Manager —are developing a limited series based on the novel, with Simon Beaufoy as the writer. It was the first work to win the award for "Best Novel" from both mystery writing organizations.

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In , the fiftieth anniversary of the Dagger Awards, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was awarded the "Dagger of Daggers," a one-time award given to the Golden Dagger winner regarded as the stand-out among all fifty winners over the history of the Crime Writers' Association. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the book. Retrieved 25 May Open University Press, , p. Retrieved 29 October Retrieved 7 January Retrieved 14 January The Murder of the Maharaja by H.

Ich bin ein Berliner "Tear down this wall! Funeral in Berlin Gotcha! Retrieved from " https: EngvarB from September Use dmy dates from September Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 20 November , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Cover for the Victor Gollancz first edition. A Murder of Quality.