Best spy books, from timeless classics to new releases

Features

From Bond to Argylle: how spy fiction has evolved

An image of John Le Carre book covers on a red background

john-Le-Carre-books

New George Smiley novel from John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway

le-carre-essay-main-image-1800×1200.jpg

What re-reading John le Carré taught me

Where-to-Start-With-John-Le-Carre_hero-thumbnail_Penguin

Reading lists

Where to start reading  John le Carré’s books

John-le-Carre-main.jpg

John le Carré, the great chronicler of our age, has died

John le Carré and front cover of 'Agent Running in the Field'

Carre-audiobook-promo.jpg

News

John le Carré to narrate the audiobook of his new novel ‘Agent Running in the Field’

Florence Pugh reads The Little Drummer Girl

florence-pugh-reads-little-drummer-girl.jpg

Your first look at the TV adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl

little-drummer-girl-bbc-preview.png

A_Legacy_of_Spies_Snippet.png

A brief history of George Smiley

Explore Smiley's London from the John le Carré novels

smiley-map-v8.jpg

Explore Smiley’s London

the_pigeon_tunnel_extract_788x306.jpg

Extracts

John le Carré on offending fellow spies, and introducing them to Alec Guinness

John le Carré to publish new novel A Legacy of Spies with Viking Books

john-le-carre-a-legacy-of-spies-788×306.jpg

Inside the secret pages of John le Carré’s new book

6 of our favourite author cameos in films – did you spot them?

author-cameos-lee-child.jpg

10 books for crime fans, which have thrilled and chilled us this year

books-for-crime-fans-reading-list-788×306-2.jpg

10 books for crime fans which have thrilled us this year

richardburton.jpg

John le Carré on The Night Manager and other adaptations of his books

The_Night_Manager_Snippet.png

The Night Manager by John le Carré

The Night Manager

To catch a criminal, he must become one 
Jonathan Pine, night manager of a luxury Swiss hotel, has a secret. He knows that the guest he awaits, billionaire trader Richard Roper, is ‘the worst man in the world.’ And he knows why. Pine will do whatever it takes to help the Intelligence services bring Roper down – even if it means going deep undercover into a ruthless, lawless world, up against forces more dangerous than he can imagine.

One of those writers who will be read a century from now.

Complex and intense ... page-turning tension.

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 &amp; 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel, Silverview, was published in 2021.

At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities - about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings - backfires terribly, and people close to Pine begin to die, he commits himself to a battle against powerful forces he cannot begin to imagine. 
 
In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carré creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted.

Call for the Dead

The Smiley Collection

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily Telegraph 
An apparent suicide. A deepening mystery. A letter from a dead man... 
Secret agent George Smiley is in trouble. A Foreign Office civil servant, Samuel Fennan, has killed himself, and Smiley realizes that Intelligence head Maston is going to set him up to take the blame. Beginning his own investigation, Smiley is shocked to receive an urgent letter from the dead man, and slowly uncovers a network of deceit and betrayal. Le Carré's debut novel was also the first of his many books to feature the tenacious, unassuming and singular George Smiley.

John le Carré was born in 1931. After studying at the university of Bern and Oxford and teaching at Eton, he began a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a civil servant, and acclaim swiftly followed, consolidated by The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. He died on 12 December 2020.

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.

The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020

A Private Spy

John le Carré was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the penname. 
_____ 
 
'The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carré's final masterpiece' 5*, Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph 
_____ 
 
A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carré's own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the 'chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live. We find le Carré writing to Sir Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. What emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name. 
_____ 
 
Includes letters to: 
John Banville 
William Burroughs 
John Cheever 
Stephen Fry 
Graham Greene 
Sir Alec Guinness 
Hugh Laurie 
Ben Macintyre 
Ian McEwan 
Gary Oldman 
Philip Roth 
Philippe Sands 
Sir Tom Stoppard 
Margaret Thatcher 
And more...

Each letter from John le Carré was a beautifully written miniature essay ... fascinating

A Private Spy testifies to le Carré's universally acknowledged gifts as a raconteur, mimic and caricaturist

Unsurprisingly, he was a brilliant correspondent. Revelations tumble out...These engaging letters are edited with great fairness and sensitivity by a family member, his son Tim Cornwell

The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carré's final masterpiece, 5*

[He had a] rare command of language and unique understanding of how the world really works

John le Carré was born in 1931. He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while working in British Intelligence (MI5&6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carré's own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the 'chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live. 
 
We find le Carré writing to Sir Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. What emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name.

A Legacy of Spies

'A brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme cannon' Evening Standard 
 
'Vintage le Carré. Immensely clever, breathtaking. Really, not since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect' John Banville, Guardian 
 
Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinised by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good. 
 
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own story, John le Carré has given us a novel of superb and enduring quality. 
 
'Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched. There is only one le Carré. Eloquent, subtle, sublimely paced' Daily Mail 
 
'Splendid, fast-paced, riveting' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times 
 
'Remarkable. Vintage John le Carré. It gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years. Like wine, le Carré's writing has got richer with age. Don't wait for the paperback' The Times 
 
'Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He's in the first rank' Ian McEwan 
 
'The literary event of the Autumn' Evening Standard 
 
'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good. 
 
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own story, John le Carré has given us a novel of superb and enduring quality.

Stories from My Life: NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV MOTION PICTURE

The Pigeon Tunnel

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING MEMOIR OF SPY-WRITING LEGEND JOHN LE CARRÉ 
 
'As recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen' Financial Times 
 
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War to a career as a writer, John le Carré has lived a unique life. 
 
In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive - reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he's interviewing a German terrorist in her desert prison or watching Alec Guinness preparing for his role as George Smiley, this book invites us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood. 
 
Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer's journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters. 
 
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times' Guardian 
 
'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré . . . These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi

The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré's memoir and his first work of non-fiction, is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels. From terrifying meetings with Yasser Arafat in war-torn Beirut to brilliantly observed encounters with the great figures of twentieth century film, from Stanley Kubrick to Alec Guinness. The reader is swept along not just by the chilling winds of the Cold War or by the author's frightening journeys into places of terrible violence but, most importantly, by the author's inimitable voice. 
 
In this astonishing work we see our world, both public and private, through the eyes of one of the world's greatest writers.

A Delicate Truth

'With A Delicate Truth, le Carré has in a sense come home. And it's a splendid homecoming . . . the novel is the most satisfying, subtle and compelling of his recent oeuvre' The Times 
 
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. 
 
Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. 
 
If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent? 
__________________ 
 
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times, from the Second World War to the 'War on Terror'' Guardian 
 
'The master of the modern spy novel returns . . . John le Carré was never a spy-turned-writer, he was a writer who found his canvas in espionage' Daily Mail 
 
'A brilliant climax, with sinister deaths, casual torture, wrecked lives and shameful compromises' Observer

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. 
 
Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. 
 
If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

John le Carré

A mole, implanted by Moscow Centre, has infiltrated the highest ranks of the British Intelligence Service, almost destroying it in the process. And so former spymaster George Smiley has been brought out of retirement in order to hunt down the traitor at the very heart of the Circus - even though it may be one of those closest to him. 
 
The first part of le Carré's acclaimed Karla Trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sees the beginning of the stealthy Cold War cat-and-mouse game between the taciturn, dogged Smiley and his wily Soviet counterpart.

John le Carré

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Select a format:

Pre-order:

Summary

More books from this author