
The Looking Glass War
The Smiley Collection
John le Carre(Author)
Penguin Classics (Publisher)
Published on 27. February 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-241-33093-7 (ISBN)
Description
THE FOURTH GEORGE SMILEY NOVEL
When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumours of a missile base near the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to regain some standing in the Intelligence world. Desperate for glory and determined to outdo their rivals at the Circus, including George Smiley, they send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate is no longer his own.
Showing men carried away by fear and pride, The Looking Glass War is a powerful, moving story of human frailty.
'A devastating and tragic record of human, not glamour, spies' New York Herald Tribune
'A book of rare and great power' Financial Times
When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumours of a missile base near the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to regain some standing in the Intelligence world. Desperate for glory and determined to outdo their rivals at the Circus, including George Smiley, they send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate is no longer his own.
Showing men carried away by fear and pride, The Looking Glass War is a powerful, moving story of human frailty.
'A devastating and tragic record of human, not glamour, spies' New York Herald Tribune
'A book of rare and great power' Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
Le Carre's most underrated novel is a devastating and first-class read * The Times *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 181 mm
Width: 111 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
187 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-33093-7 (9780241330937)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

John le Carre
The Looking Glass War
E-Book
11/2011
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€8.99
Available for download
Person
John le Carre 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 Carre 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.