Image courtesy of johnlecarre.comJohn le Carré (or David John Moore Cornwell) was a top British author of espionage novels. He had a background in working for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service during the 1950s and 60s, although many of his colleagues regarded him as a traitor for his hostile portrayal of the service.
As Rob Judges explains:
“David Cornwell was as complex a character as any in his books. He would probably have agreed that, in retrospect, he seemed a most unsuitable recruit to the secret service. This was partly because he had a strong sense of morality, and in his books he transferred his own tortuous worries to the Service. He never felt fully at home with the institutions or the members of the British Establishment. Although he had the style of a Conservative, he voted Labour. When researching his books, he travelled alone and unobtrusively. To write them, he secluded himself in his house overlooking the sea at Land’s End. “Nothing that I write is authentic,” he wrote on his website. “It is the stuff of dreams, not reality.”
He passed away on 12 December 2020 at the age of 89 from pneumonia, and in his memory, we’ve collated some of his top novels for you to read, if you haven’t already.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by British author John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service.
A Perfect Spy
Over the course of his seemingly irreproachable life, Magnus Pym has been all things to all people: a devoted family man, a trusted colleague, a loyal friend—and the perfect spy. But in the wake of his estranged father’s death, Magnus vanishes, and the British Secret Service is up in arms. Is it grief, or is the reason for his disappearance more sinister? And who is the mysterious man with the sad moustache who also seems to be looking for Magnus?
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Alec Leamas is tired. It's the 1960s, he's been out in the cold for years, spying in Berlin for his British masters, and has seen too many good agents murdered for their troubles. Now Control wants to bring him in at last - but only after one final assignment. He must travel deep into the heart of Communist Germany and betray his country, a job that he will do with his usual cynical professionalism.
The Honourable Schoolboy
In the wake of a demoralizing infiltration by a Soviet double agent, Smiley has been made ringmaster of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service). Determined to restore the organization's health and reputation, and bent on revenge, Smiley thrusts his own handpicked operative into action. Jerry Westerby, "The Honourable Schoolboy," is dispatched to the Far East. A burial ground of French, British, and American colonial cultures, the region is a fabled testing ground of patriotic allegiances?and a new showdown is about to begin.
The Constant Gardener
The Constant Gardener is a magnificent exploration of the new world order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time. The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of Tessa Quayle — young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers as well.
Smiley’s People
A very junior agent answers Vladimir’s call, but it could have been the Chief of the Circus himself. No one at the British Secret Service considers the old spy to be anything except a senile has-been who can’t give up the game—until he’s shot in the face at point-blank range. Although George Smiley (code name: Max) is officially retired, he’s summoned to identify the body now bearing Moscow Centre’s bloody imprimatur. As he works to unearth his friend’s fatal secrets, Smiley heads inexorably toward one final reckoning with Karla—his dark “grail.”
Call for the Dead
After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation. But on the very day that Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man. Do the East Germans - and their agents - know more about this man's death than the Circus previously imagined? Le Carré's debut novel, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.