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

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

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What re-reading John le Carré taught me

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Reading lists

Where to start reading  John le Carré’s books

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

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

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News

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

Florence Pugh reads The Little Drummer Girl

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

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A brief history of George Smiley

Explore Smiley's London from the John le Carré novels

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Explore Smiley’s London

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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

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

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

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

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10 books for crime fans which have thrilled us this year

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

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The Night Manager by John le Carré

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Smiley Collection

'A stunning story' Wall Street Journal 
 
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. 
 
'A great thriller, the best le Carré has written' Spectator 
 
THE FIFTH GEORGE SMILEY NOVEL

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.

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 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.

Our Kind of Traitor

In John le Carré's electrifying novel Our Kind of Traitor, innocents abroad are drawn into the darkest recesses of the financial world. 
 
Britain is in the depths of recession. A left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis. 
 
What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's Intelligence Establishment. 
 
'If you want to know about the state of Britain today, forget the Booker shortlist. Just read John le Carré's latest thriller' Evening Standard 
 
'Few recent plays have had dialogue as good, and few recent literary novels can boast a set of characters so vividly imagined. Our Kind of Traitor is a teasing, beguiling, masterly performance' Sunday Times

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.

An English couple, Perry and Gail, are taking an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis. 
 
What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's Intelligence Establishment.

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.

John le Carré

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