Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
The suicide of a civil servant following a routine interview creates a problem for George Smiley, the MI6 operative who handled the case.
His ambitious boss wants to line him up to take the blame, matters are further complicated when he receives an urgent letter sent by the dead man. Further out in the cold than is comfortable Smiley uncovers a network of deceit and betrayal, both personal and political, linked to his wartime activities.
First published in 1961 when le Carré was still working for ‘the circus’, this is the book that launched his career as the definitive espionage novelist of the Cold War era. More than sixty years on it is still a riveting read.
All the elements that made his subsequent work so distinctive are present. The ambiguity, melancholy and realistically depicted tradecraft that combine to give a picture of a secret service and a Britain trying to come to terms with having lost an empire and failed to fine a purpose.
Smiley, even in this early outing, shows all the hallmarks of a character destined to become an unlikely icon. He is a brilliantly judged mixture of eccentric tics, defeated by life yet still bound by romantic moral principles. A perfect antithesis to the more glamourous literary secret agents.
Often overshadowed by his later novels and the film and television adaptations starring the likes of Alec Guinness and Richard Burton le Carré superb debut novel is ripe for rediscovery and re-evaluation.
