Call for the Dead
1st Edition
Published on 3. November 2011
176 pages
978-0-14-197224-4 (ISBN)
Description
'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 Carre's debut novel was also the first of his many books to feature the tenacious, unassuming and singular George Smiley.
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 Carre's debut novel was also the first of his many books to feature the tenacious, unassuming and singular George Smiley.
Reviews / Votes
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 Carre 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 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
0,46 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-14-197224-4 (9780141972244)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
John le Carre 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 Carre widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. He died on 12 December 2020.
