Book description
The first of his peerless novels of Cold War espionage and
international intrigue, Call for the Dead is also the debut of
John le Carr 's masterful creation George Smiley, published in Penguin
Modern Classics.
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 Carr 's first
book, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring
George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.
John le Carr was born in 1931 and attended the universities of Bern
and Oxford. He taught at Eton and served briefly in British
Intelligence during the Cold War. For the last 50 years he has lived
by his pen. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.
If you enjoyed Call for the Dead, you might like le Carr '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
John le Carr was educated at the University of Berne (where he
studied German literature for a year) and at Lincoln College, Oxford,
where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in modern
languages. From 1959 to 1964 he was a member of the British Foreign
Service, serving first as Second Secretary in the British Embassy in
Bonn and subsequently as Political Consul in Hamburg. He started writing
novels in 1961, and since then has published twenty-one titles.
