Showing results by author "John Le Carré" in All Categories

After an unremarkable interview, Circus agent George Smiley determines the subject of a standard security check—a civil servant in the Foreign Office named Samuel Fennan—poses no threat, nor presents any reason for suspicion of espionage. Hours later, Samuel Fennan is found dead by suicide. Suddenly finding himself under intense scrutiny, Smiley realizes the Circus intends to blame him for Fennan's death. Rather than remain idle, Smiley begins his own investigation into the nature of the man's demise.

Pulled out of (forced) retirement by his old protégé, Peter Guillam, George Smiley must determine who among the high command at the British Secret Intelligence Service is in fact a Soviet spy—one who’s been climbing their way up the ranks for decades. The stakes are high: the mole is behind more than one failed operation and has lain waste to some of their best informant networks.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK AMC Miniseries event April 19 Tues 10/9c John le Carré, the legendary author of sophisticated spy thrillers, is at the top of his game in this classic novel of a world in chaos. With the Cold War over, a new era of espionage has...

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin’. When word reaches 'The...

The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carré's best-selling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatisations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels.

For Alisa Brimley, editor of the small magazine Christian Voice, receiving a letter from a longtime subscriber might otherwise be a perfectly normal occasion—except Stella Rode, the reader in question, writes that her husband is planning to kill her. Brimley calls upon an old wartime friend to help her investigate: retired Circus spy, George Smiley. Before Smiley can begin, Rode is found murdered, and Brimley asks Smiley to venture to the small town of Carne, home of the elite Carne School where Rode's husband is a public school junior master.

It’s the early 1960s, and the newly built Berlin Wall looms large. British intelligence officer Alec Leamas, caught in its shadow, feels the chill all too keenly: the preceding years have seen nearly every member of his Berlin spy network either murdered or captured. To him, the prospect of a desk job feels more like solace than purgatory. When he’s summoned to London by Control, it seems as though he’s finally being called home.

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping new novel set in the universe of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker...

When General Vladimir, a Soviet defector, is brutally murdered in London's Hampstead Heath on his way to meet a junior Circus agent, George Smiley finds himself being pulled from retirement—again. As Vladimir's former case officer, Smiley has the privilege of cleaning up and burying the the mess. But one last message from the general, sent just before he died, hints at a major operation led by spymaster Karla, Smiley's Soviet counterpart. Thrust back into the world of Cold War espionage in pursuit of his longtime nemesis, Smiley assembles a small team of trusted operatives.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE SEVENTH GEORGE SMILEY NOVEL A Soviet defector has been assassinated on English soil, and George Smiley is called back to the Circus to clear up - and cover up - the mess. But what he discovers sends him delving into the past, on a trail through Hamburg and Paris to...

It is 1962: the height of the Cold War and only months after the building of the Berlin Wall. Alec Leamas is a hard-working, hard-drinking British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in tatters. His agents are either on the run or dead, victims of the ruthlessly efficient East German counter-intelligence officer Hans-Dieter Mundt.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle. Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin “[A Spy Among...

‘You’re not to disturb, annoy or offend. They’re walking on a knife edge out there, anything could tilt the balance.’ Missing: one junior diplomat and 43 of the British Embassy’s most confidential files. The timing is alarmingly significant: with neo-Nazi riots and radical student...

In the era of perestroika and glasnost in the USSR, a manuscript is meant to be delivered to one Bartholomew Barley Blair, a British publisher known for his eccentricity. The manuscript, penned by Russian scientist Yakov Savelyev, contains critical information detailing the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities and the state of their missile program. Except—it doesn't reach Barley. Instead, after exchanging hands several times, it ends up in the hands of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and they're quite interested in why Barley was the intended recipient of such a document.

With his time in British intelligence drawing to a close, veteran spy “Ned” asks his colleague George Smiley to address his graduating class of trainee spies in Sarratt. Smiley’s remarks on espionage in the wake of the Cold War serve as trigger and backdrop for a series of recollections and memories of Ned’s many decades as a British spy.

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.

Magnus Pym, Counsellor at the British Embassy, is hosting a dinner party at his home in Vienna when he receives an unexpected telephone call that will profoundly affect his life. Once the guests have gone, Pym breaks the news to his wife, Mary: his father, Rick, is dead. In a state of shock, he...

In the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington, an unholy alliance operates between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade. After a series of events in Cairo that culminate in the tragic death of a woman caught in the crosshairs, hotel night manager (and former military intelligence operative) Jonathan Pine is ready to stand up and be counted in the fight against this ultimate heart of darkness.

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin’. The Berlin Wall is down...

Charlie, a jobbing young English actress, is accustomed to playing different roles. But when the mysterious, battle-scarred Joseph recruits her into the Israeli secret services, she enters the dangerous 'theatre of the real'. As she acts out her part in an intricate, high-stakes plot to trap and kill a Palestinian terrorist, it threatens to consume her.