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Call for the Dead

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141198286

  • Length: 160  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 9mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 123g

  • RRP: £8.99

Call for the Dead

The first of his peerless novels of Cold War espionage and international intrigue, Call for the Dead is also the debut of John le Carré's masterful creation George Smiley.

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 first book, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.

If you enjoyed Call for the Dead, you might like le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'Intelligent, thrilling, surprising ... makes most cloak-and-dagger stuff taste of cardboard' Sunday Telegraph

'Brilliant. Realistic. Constant suspense' Observer

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141198286

  • Length: 160  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 9mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 123g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • Intelligent, thrilling, surprising ... makes most cloak-and-dagger stuff taste of cardboard.

    Sunday Telegraph

  • Brilliant. Realistic. Constant suspense.

    Observer

  • The greatest spy novelist of all time ... astounding works of the imagination.

    Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph

  • Brilliant, popular, intelligent, thrilling, suspenseful, angry, original, masterful writing. Can't be topped.

    Armando Iannucci

  • An extraordinary writer who brought literary lustre and lived insight to the spy yarn.

    Ian Rankin

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

    Robert Harris

  • His Smiley novels are key to understanding the mid-20th century.

    Margaret Atwood

  • What Joseph Conrad started, John le Carré enshrined and made modern. That is the real achievement of his great novels and why they will endure ... we should see him as our contemporary Dickens.

    William Boyd, New Statesman

  • Brilliant. Realistic. Constant suspense

    Observer

  • Intelligent, thrilling, surprising ... makes most cloak-and-dagger stuff taste of cardboard

    Sunday Telegraph

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About the Author

John le Carré

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&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.

John le Carré

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Recommendations

Where to start reading John le Carré books

His death this week marked the end of a career which produced internationally acclaimed novels in every decade from the 1960s onwards. Le Carré’s work was enjoyed by readers and critics alike and adapted multiple times for film and television, making him one of the most celebrated and influential authors of modern times. But where to start if you’re new to this work? Here is our starter for ten.
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Features

Florence Pugh reads The Little Drummer Girl

Alongside Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Shannon, Florence Pugh stars in The Little Drummer Girl, the latest adaptation of John le Carré’s thrilling novel of espionage and betrayal. Here she reads le Carré’s description of the character that she herself plays in the BBC series.
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Extracts

The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carre

In this extract from The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré describes the accusations of disloyalty he faced from former Secret Service colleagues - and how Alec Guinness used them in his portrayal of George Smiley

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