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Le Carré's first two novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), are mystery fiction. Each features a retired spy, George Smiley, investigating a death; in the first book, the apparent suicide of a suspected communist, and in the second volume, a murder at a boy's public school. Although Call for the Dead evolves into an espionage story, Smiley's motives are more personal than political. Le Carré's third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works; following its publication, he left MI6 to become a full-time writer. Although le Carré had intended The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as an indictment of espionage as morally compromised, audiences widely viewed its protagonist, Alec Leamas, as a tragic hero. In response, le Carré's next book, The Looking Glass War, was a satire about an increasingly deadly espionage mission which ultimately proves pointless.
Most of le Carré's books are spy stories set during the Cold War (1945–91) and portray British Intelligence agents as unheroic political functionaries aware of the moral ambiguity of their work and engaged more in psychological than physical drama. The novels emphasise the fallibility of Western democracy and of the secret services protecting it, often implying the possibility of east–west moral equivalence. They experience little of the violence typically encountered in action thrillers and have very little recourse to gadgets. Much of the conflict is internal, rather than external and visible. The recurring character George Smiley, who plays a central role in five novels and appears as a supporting character in four more, was written as an "antidote" to James Bond, a character le Carré called "an international gangster" rather than a spy and who he felt should be excluded from the canon of espionage literature. In contrast, he intended Smiley, who is an overweight, bespectacled bureaucrat who uses cunning and manipulation to achieve his ends, as an accurate depiction of a spy.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People (the Karla trilogy) brought Smiley back as the central figure in a sprawling espionage saga depicting his efforts first to root out a mole in the Circus and then to entrap his Soviet rival and counterpart, code-named Karla. The trilogy was originally meant to be a long-running series that would find Smiley dispatching agents after Karla all around the world. Smiley's People marked the last time Smiley featured as the central character in a le Carré story, although he brought the character back in The Secret Pilgrim and A Legacy of Spies.
A Perfect Spy (1986), which chronicles the boyhood moral education of Magnus Pym and how it leads to his becoming a spy, is the author's most autobiographical espionage novel, reflecting the boy's very close relationship with his con man father. Biographer LynnDianne Beene describes the novelist's own father, Ronnie Cornwell, as "an epic con man of little education, immense charm, extravagant tastes, but no social values". Le Carré reflected that "writing A Perfect Spy is probably what a very wise shrink would have advised". He also wrote a semi-autobiographical work, The Naïve and Sentimental Lover (1971), as the story of a man's midlife existential crisis.The Soviet knight is dying inside his armour.
“Glasnost” is on everyone’s lips, but the rules of the game haven’t changed for either side.
When a beautiful Russian woman foists off a manuscript on an unwitting bystander at the Moscow Book Fair, it’s a miracle that she flies under the Soviets’ radar. Or does she?
The woman’s source (codename: Bluebird) will trust only Barley Blair, a whiskey-soaked gentleman publisher with a poet’s heart.
Coerced by British and American Intelligence, Blair journeys to Moscow to determine whether Bluebird’s manuscript contains the truth—or the darkest of fictions.
At once poignant and suspenseful, John le Carré’s The Russia House is a captivating saga of lives caught in the crosshairs of history.
Reviews
“Simply the world's greatest fictional spymaster.” - Newsweek
"Thrilling in every imaginable way." - People
"A plot of commanding suspense…The Russia House is both afire and thought-provoking, a thriller that demands a second reading." - Time Magazine
“The master of the spy novel has discovered perestroika, and the genre may never be the same again.” - Publishers Weekly“Michael Jayston has had to provide more than a proper British voice in his narration. With a couple of Soviets, a few Americans, and a cadre of British agents, he has multiple challenges. He meets all of them deftly, adapting well as Barley learns the spy game. Jayston’s delivery enhances le Carré’s suspenseful writing.” - AudioFile
Audiobook on CD-ROM, complete with cover art on the CD. Supplied in a windowed CD sleeve, no case provided.
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