Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Call for the Dead cover art

Call for the Dead

By: John le Carré
Narrated by: Michael Jayston
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £10.00

Buy Now for £10.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Complete George Smiley Radio Dramas cover art
The Gray Man cover art
Shake Hands For Ever cover art
Iron Lake cover art
Some Danger Involved cover art
Speaks the Nightbird cover art
The Cold, Cold Ground cover art
The Prestige cover art
Britain Alone cover art
The Alienist cover art
The Crime at Black Dudley cover art

Summary

An unabridged reading by Michael Jayston of John le Carré’s first novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley.

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’.

This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself soon after making a cup of cocoa and asking the exchange to telephone him in the morning, Smiley decides to investigate – only to uncover a murderous conspiracy with its roots in his own secret wartime past.

©1962 David Cornwell (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.

What listeners say about Call for the Dead

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,167
  • 4 Stars
    514
  • 3 Stars
    130
  • 2 Stars
    36
  • 1 Stars
    11
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,269
  • 4 Stars
    284
  • 3 Stars
    64
  • 2 Stars
    15
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    994
  • 4 Stars
    463
  • 3 Stars
    144
  • 2 Stars
    24
  • 1 Stars
    9

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A refreshing change

First venture into the world of George Smiley, good to start at the very inception of his character.

The 4 * is because despite the narrator being amiable there was at times difficulty in distinguishing which character was speaking. You have to really 'listen' intently to the narrative to follow the plot. Perhaps because of the style of narration I found myself rewinding the story quite a bit on numerous occasions. This said, I did enjoy the story and am happily listening to the next installment read by the same chap. I've tuned into him now!

George Smiley - not quite sure what to make of him yet, he reminds me a bit of C J Sansoms Shardlake character; beguiling but with an underlying intrigue, I like him, I hope that he develops as a character throughout the books, that we get to know more about him.

The length of the story is just right, I generally enjoy 20hr plus novels but it has been quite refreshing to partake of this short book.

Recommended - yes
An easy listen - not necessarily and certainly not for when you are tired.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A book that launched a career

This 1961 novel was Le Carre’s first. It was an instant success and introduced the literary world to George Smiley. It contrasted starkly with the action packed, ruthless, gun totting macho heroes found in James Bond stories. Instead, it portrayed spies as bureaucratic types with academic rather than physical prowess. Smiley’s world is often mundane, even boring, but also peppered with flashes of inspiration and luck. Similarly, his colleagues are not drawn from an elite SAS team, but seem to have all the normal foibles of normal people. If Fleming’s Bond was a hare then LeCarre’s counterpart of Smiley was definitely a tortoise.

On the face of it, Le Carre’s first book does not sound as if it would compete with well established best-selling Ian Fleming and that is the point, it doesn’t. In spite of both authors writing about secret agents they are from very different stables. What Le Carre does is to provide an insight into a different kind of spy from Bond. And he does it in a way that hardly requires any suspension of disbelief. Smiley’s world oozes with the verisimilitude of real spies from that era, Burgess, McLean, Blunt etc., people living apparently ‘normal’ lives, but with dark secrets. Furthermore, Le Carre conjures up his story using outstanding prose that makes you want to keep on listening. It is like missing your stop on the underground because the conversation you are eavesdropping on is just too enthralling, even if it is seemingly about everyday things. So, if you like a well told story that happens to be about spies then you should like this book.

Finally, full marks for Michael Jayston who give a great performance and makes the characters come alive.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Call for the Dead

Another John le Carré novel that I would recommend unreservedly. I have read other le Carré novels first that were far more epic in nature but enjoyed that this story started off in a far more subtle way gradually bring the characters we love into focus.

In some audio books I find I have to try to ignore the fact that the narrator only seems to be able to do one voice for a dozen different characters or uses a tone/accent that seems completely at odds with the story itself. In this version the narrator is in perfect keeping with the atmosphere of the book bringing the characters and story to life in a way which in my opinion is comparable with the BBC dramatizations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Classic murder mystery

I started listening to John le Carre with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (another book which I can thoroughly recommend) and i've become addicted to him. This, his first book, is a great read/listen and a much easier one than Tinker Tailor, albeit just as engrossing. I would highly recommend it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Meeting Smiley for the first time

The beginning of the Smiley series and it does begin in that rather lonely and depressing manner the le Carre often writes in. That to one side Smiley aka Toad is si beguiling and the story is not complicated and so makes a wonderful introduction. The reader is perfect and I have heard le Carre himself read and it's fine enough but Jayston elevates it and feels right.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Read them all

The entire series kept shocking me. You think you know what your grandad got up to when young? No, you don't. I didn't see the TV series and expected this to be different from crime drama I'm used to. It is different. It's cruel, intelligent, stupid, heartbreaking and cold. So bloody cold. Listen to them all, if only because he's a really beautiful writer.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Engrossing from beginning to end

Meeting George Smiley again after a number of years is like running into a dear old friend. A friend who you take at face value with all his foibles because time has taught you he will not let you down. Le Carre draws you into the tale from the very beginning and then there's no stopping .

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Start of George Smiley…

Can read/listen to this wonderful story again and again. Plus the beginning of the Smiley books…. Just brilliant in conception and plot and characterisation. And beautifully narrated by ‘Guillam’ (Jayston).

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good story, great narration

Call for the Dead is the first John Le Carre/Smiley novel that I have listened to and, based on this, will definitely be purchasing more. It is an entertaining, compact spy story with great central characters. My enjoyment of it was further increased by the excellent narrator who perfectly performs all of the characters, George Smiley especially.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A great beginning!

As the first LeCarre I was a little trepidatious, fearing a weak first novel. But this was a cracker. Excellently read and with a sense of tone and atmosphere which drew me in to a nicely complex plot, not overdone or hard to follow but gripping and engaging.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful