Product Description:

It would be an international crime to reveal too much of the jeweled clockwork plot of Le Carré's first masterpiece, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. But we are at liberty to disclose that Graham Greene called it the 'finest spy story ever written,' and that the taut tale concerns Alec Leamas, a British agent in early Cold War Berlin. Leamas is responsible for keeping the double agents under his care undercover and alive, but East Germans start killing them, so he gets called back to London by Control, his spy master. Yet instead of giving Leamas the boot, Control gives him a scary assignment: play the part of a disgraced agent, a sodden failure everybody whispers about. Control sends him back out into the cold--deep into Communist territory to checkmate the bad-guy spies on the other side. The political chessboard is black and white, but in human terms the vicinity of the Berlin Wall is a moral no-man's land, a gray abyss patrolled by pawns.

Le Carré beats most spy writers for two reasons. First, he knows what he's talking about, since he raced around working for British Intelligence while the Wall went up. He's familiar with spycraft's fascinations, but also with the fact that it leaves ideals shaken and emotions stirred. Second, his literary tone has deep autobiographical roots. Spying is about betrayal, and Le Carré was abandoned by his mother and betrayed by his father, a notorious con man. (They figure heavily in his novels Single & Single and A Perfect Spy.) In a world of lies, Le Carré writes the bitter truth: it's every man for himself. And may the best mask win. --Tim Appelo

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: 4.54 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- An intelligent and entertaining book
This book starts as your standard cold war spy novel that is vaguely interesting before moving into high gear. When you finally realise what is actually going on in the plot, I assure you that you'll be astounded at the sheer intelligence that LeCarre has communicated in this novel. All is not what it seems and the plot kicks into gear, it is addictive reading. In fact, a second reading is often necessary just to go over and comprehend it completely. All around it is a great story, so great, in fact, that when the novel was first released it was believed that LeCarre was a former government agent! A great book that makes for a fascinating read. I totally recommend it.

Rating:

- Le Carre's Best...
This is it - the best spy novel ever written, so good that not even Le Carre has ever been able to match it. If your image of espionage is formed by the cheesy gadgetry and high adventure of James Bond, then get ready for one very rude awakening. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a heartbreaking story, full of lonely people sadly making their way through a cold world - the Cold War was never more chilly than it is here. It's a sad and depressing book, but a smashingly good one, too. Read it.

Rating:

- The Cold War at its Coldest
A word of warning: "The Spy who Came in From the Cold" is not just an espionage thriller, it's a horror story.

British MI-5 agent Alec Leamas, the eponymous hero of John Le Carre's brutal little espionage masterpiece "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", discovers that being a secret agent at the height of the Cold War is a little like being a man outside in the cold, looking in on the friendly warmth of home and hearth but unable to come in---so close, yet so far. His life depends on keeping up a charade, on cloaking his intentions and lying about his work. He can trust no one but himself, and he keeps an eagle eye on himself.

To make matters worse, a botched defection at the Berlin Wall sends Leamas's career into free fall, prompting his recall to London, a subsequent ... Read More

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