TWO INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERS IN ONE VOLUME MEET THE CLEVEREST AND MOST SELF-EFFACING MAN IN SECURITY A Murder of Quality There has been a murder at one of England's leading public schools--a murder forecast by the victim. As a favour to an old friend, George Smiley pays a visit to Carne School to listen, to ask, and to uncover, layer by layer, the complex network of skeletons and hatreds that comprise that fine English institution. Call for the Dead Samuel Fennan, a Foreign Office man, was under investigation ...
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TWO INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERS IN ONE VOLUME MEET THE CLEVEREST AND MOST SELF-EFFACING MAN IN SECURITY A Murder of Quality There has been a murder at one of England's leading public schools--a murder forecast by the victim. As a favour to an old friend, George Smiley pays a visit to Carne School to listen, to ask, and to uncover, layer by layer, the complex network of skeletons and hatreds that comprise that fine English institution. Call for the Dead Samuel Fennan, a Foreign Office man, was under investigation for Communist activities, until Smiley dismissed the allegations. When Fennan is found dead the day after he's been cleared, with a note by his body saying he can't go on with his career in ruins, Smiley is puzzled ... A deeper investigation uncovers a spy ring and Smiley is led into a lethal duel of wits with the best of his war-time pupils.
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Recently, I've hit a dry patch in my reading; everything is the 'same-old-same-old' or the dialogue is awful. So, I decided to reread some of my old favorites. I remember loving all of John Le Carre's George Smiley spy stories. Masterpiece Theatre's visual interpretations of the Le Carre stories were superb. It was time to turn back the clock to the Cold War -- when you knew who your enemies were!
What I love about this book is that Le Carre doesn't fill in all the dots, he makes the reader work to understand what is going on in the story. When I got to the story of Dieter, one of Smiley's war-time associates, I remembered the gist of the story. This in no way diminished my enjoyment of the novel.
This book is the opening salvo in a group of marvelous spy novels.
George Smiley Spy Novels
1. A Call for the Dead (1961)
2. A Murder of Quality (1962)
3. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
4. The Looking Glass War (1965)
5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
6. The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
