The Spy who Came in from the Cold

by John le Carre
List(s):"Carp 500"
Category: "Fiction - Adventure"
Pages:240
Year of Publication:1963
Date Read:10/11/1996
Notes:Alec Leamas is a British agent in early Cold War Berlin. He is responsible for keeping the double agents under his care undercover and alive, but East Germans start killing them, so Leamas gets called back to London by Control, his spy master. 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

COMMENTS — John Le Carre is the pseudonym for David John More Cornwell. He worked as a diplomat in the British Foreign Office, and for that reason was not allowed to write under his own name. “Le Carre” is French for square, but the author claims to have told so many lies about the origin of his pseudonym that he forgets the real reason he chose it. If you enjoy this book, Le Carre wrote several other spy novels using some of the same characters in each one.
My Rating: 7

Reviews for The Spy who Came in from the Cold

Review - Spy who Came in from the Cold, The

Impressive story, with all sorts of twists and turns, but without anybody to really root for. The ending is sad — Leamas realizes that his chosen path causes the death of the one person he cares for, his girlfriend, Liz. When he sees her shot down on the verge of making it to safety, he decides to die with her rather than escape.
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