Book #37 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The jewel in the crown of the espionage canon. I first read The Spy… in the early 70s with a second reading in the 90s, I believe it was. This has been my third reading. Having recently read A Legacy of Spies, which filled in so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had tormented fans for more than fifty years, I just had to revisit the Smiley era.

George Smiley was introduced in Call for the Dead in 1961. He returned in 1962 in A Murder of Quality, his only story set outside the intelligence community. Then, in 1963, comes the masterpiece: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold which remains the best spy story I have ever read (I agree with Graham Greene). It is a recognition of the quality of Le Carré’s writing that I could remember the book so well, almost quoting some passages verbatim.

The story relates a complicated act of deadly triple-bluff created by the British Secret Service against its enemies in the German Democratic Republic, the Abteilung. Alec Leamas is at the centre of the plot - believes he is on a clever undercover mission of revenge but clever British brains have other motives… Le Carré laces the plot with multifarious complexities as Leamas comes to realise that he has been used by his own side - fooled, manipulated and misinformed. Leamas has travelled deep into the heart of Communist Germany, ostensibly to betray his country. Smiley tries to help the woman, Liz Gold, that Leamas has befriended with devastating consequences…

The Spy… is a dark, brutal, totally believable tale of espionage during the Cold War. Spies, summed up by Leamas to Liz Gold: ”What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs…” This is a terminally fatigued Alec Leamas and the ending of the story still leaves me devastated.

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Book #34 A Legacy of Spies

A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

John Le Carré is the undisputed master of the espionage novel. I remember reading The Spy Who Came in From the Cold back in the 60s, the book that introduced us to Alec Leamas and Liz Gold and Hans-Dieter Mundt, an assassin of the East German Secret Service, whose diplomatic cover in London is uncovered by George Smiley and Peter Guillam of British Intelligence. We have waited fifty-four years for pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to be completed.

It is present day. The ageing Peter Guillam, now living in Brittany, receives a letter summoning him to London. Cold War ghosts have come back to haunt him. Past misdemeanours are being dissected, deaths that occurred decades ago. There are those who seek retribution, revenge even. What did happen to Leamas and Gold at the Berlin Wall all those years ago?

A Legacy of Spies is a brilliant read, utterly engrossing and a virtual recasting of his earlier masterpiece. I feel like going back and reading the entire Smiley canon once again.

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