The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

Alec Leamas is weary. The 1960s chill him to the bone, years spent in the shadows of the Berlin Wall, serving British intelligence. He’s witnessed the grim fate of too many good agents, sacrificed in the name of espionage.

Now, Control offers him a way out, a final, perilous mission. He must journey into the heart of Communist Germany and commit an act of ultimate betrayal. With his characteristic cynicism, Leamas accepts.

But when George Smiley intervenes, attempting to protect a young woman drawn into Leamas’s orbit, the mission spirals into unforeseen consequences. Leamas discovers that this final act may be the most devastating thing he has ever done.

In this groundbreaking thriller, the world of espionage is stripped bare, revealing a raw and harrowing tale of individuals caught in the machinations of a world beyond their comprehension.

About the Author

For six decades, John le Carré (1931–2020) wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 & 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017.