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This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds George 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.
Mr George Smiley is small, podgy, and at best, middle-aged. He is disillusioned, wrestles with idleness, and has been deserted by his beautiful wife. He is also compassionate, ruthless, and a senior British intelligence officer in short-lived retirement from the Circus, the British Secret Service organisation situated in London. But Moscow centre has infiltrated a mole into the Circus, and it's more than likely the perpetrator is Karla, Smiley's old adversary and his opposite number in Moscow.
Magnus Pym, counsellor at the British Embassy in Vienna, has suddenly vanished, believed defected. The chase is on for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a life-time secret agent. Pym's life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. The race is on to find the perfect spy.
The night manager is Jonathan, a veteran of clandestine operations. In flight from a failed marriage and his own past, he has taken refuge in the luxury hotel trade. Yet he finds no escape from his demons. Driven by a desire for atonement and by an inherited patriotism, Jonathan allows himself to be recruited as a British secret agent with a mission to expose the murderer of the woman he himself betrayed. His odyssey takes him across Britain and Canada to the Caribbean and the jungles of Panama.
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal. Then Leo Harting - an embassy nobody - goes missing with a case full of confidential files. London sends Alan Turner to control the damage, but he soon realises that neither side really wants Leo found - alive.
This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds George 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.
Mr George Smiley is small, podgy, and at best, middle-aged. He is disillusioned, wrestles with idleness, and has been deserted by his beautiful wife. He is also compassionate, ruthless, and a senior British intelligence officer in short-lived retirement from the Circus, the British Secret Service organisation situated in London. But Moscow centre has infiltrated a mole into the Circus, and it's more than likely the perpetrator is Karla, Smiley's old adversary and his opposite number in Moscow.
Magnus Pym, counsellor at the British Embassy in Vienna, has suddenly vanished, believed defected. The chase is on for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a life-time secret agent. Pym's life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. The race is on to find the perfect spy.
The night manager is Jonathan, a veteran of clandestine operations. In flight from a failed marriage and his own past, he has taken refuge in the luxury hotel trade. Yet he finds no escape from his demons. Driven by a desire for atonement and by an inherited patriotism, Jonathan allows himself to be recruited as a British secret agent with a mission to expose the murderer of the woman he himself betrayed. His odyssey takes him across Britain and Canada to the Caribbean and the jungles of Panama.
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal. Then Leo Harting - an embassy nobody - goes missing with a case full of confidential files. London sends Alan Turner to control the damage, but he soon realises that neither side really wants Leo found - alive.
In a legendary novel that appears to predict the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Graham Greene introduces James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman whose life in transformed when he is asked to join the British Secret Service. He agrees, and finds himself with no information to offer, so begins to invent sources and agencies which do not exist, but which appear very real to his superiors.
Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastation.
An unabridged audio edition of Graham Greene's classic gang-war thriller. A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge a death.... Read by Samuel West.
Among the first espionage thrillers and an acknowledged classic, The Thirty-Nine Steps well deserves its accolades as one of the best adventure stories of all time. Leaving aside the improbable denouement, the fast paced, brilliantly conceived narrative still excites and carries one along with the sheer suspense of the manhunt - a recurring theme in literature - and Hannay’s struggle against the evil that is the ‘Black Stone'.
This hugely engaging story of murder, superstition, religious politics and drama in a medieval monastery was one of the most striking novels to appear in the 1980s. The Name of the Rose is a thrilling story enriched with period detail and laced with tongue-in-cheek allusions to fictional characters, the most striking of which is the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, who displays many characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.
A Murder of Quality, set in the early 1960s, sees George Smiley investigating a murder in a public school. When the wife of one of the masters is found bludgeoned to death, Smiley, out of loyalty to an old friend, agrees to look into the case. But his investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night?
Set in contemporary, recession gripped Britain, a left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis.
Audie Award Winner, Audiobook of the Year, 2013. Audie Award Nominee, Best Solo Narration, 2013. Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King's Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.
Cormac McCarthy, best-selling author of National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, delivers his first new novel in seven years. Written in muscular prose, No Country for Old Men is a powerful tale of the West that moves at a blistering pace.
One boy, one boat, one tiger.... British comedian, actor and broadcaster Sanjeev Bhaskar, OBE performs this brilliant edition of a work of fiction that is loved by fans around the world. After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a 16 year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orangutan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for an extraordinary adventure.
A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago. First published in 1937 it charts George Orwell's observations of working-class life during the 1930s in the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His depictions of social injustice and rising unemployment, the dangerous working conditions in the mines amid general squalor and hunger also bring together many of the ideas explored in his later works and novels.
Animal Farm is George Orwell's great socio-political allegory set in a farmyard where the animals decide to seize the farmer's land and create a co-operative that reaps the benefits of their combined labours. However, as with all great political plans, some animals see a bigger share of the rewards than others and the animals start to question their supposed utopia.
Alec Leamas has ended his time in Berlin. Or his time has ended him. The last of his Eastern agents has been killed, like the others, by the Abteilung. Back at the Circus, Leamas is put on the shelf. He turns to drunkenness and dishonesty and finally disappears from view, a seemingly broken man.
But unknown to anyone except George Smiley and his master, Control, Leamas has been given his toughest mission ever. He will have to be himself but more so. He will have to fight off the inevitable softening of middle age and wait a little more before he can come in from the cold. Not even Leamas can know the plan of which he is the instrument.
This isn't my usual choice. Espionage thrillers usually leave me cold - or the thought or them does. However this was a book group choice so I chose the unabridged version and within minutes was hooked.
I'm now embarrassed to think I ignored this for
So long. The writing is so accessible; I was concerned that I would not be able to follow the plot but it's a much more relatable novel than I imagined. Good writing means this novel is a hit across the board and the narrator is amazing with his easy on the ear voice and the way each character is convincingly brought to life. I adored this reading!
14 of 14 people found this review helpful
I first read this book when it was first published. I found it quite difficult but after all these years it is much easier to understand the moral nuances and superb plotting. Hearing it read was a great experience.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
le Carre delivers another gripping tale of the cold war British spy network. Lots of twists and turns to keep the listener guessing until the very end. Up there with the rest of his works.
The narrator delivers the story brilliantly, although in previous purchases where Le Carre has read them himself does take a lot of beating.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
One of JLC's classics. The voice was just perfect, conveying the suspense of the thriller.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
This was a gripping, realistic story of morally ambiguous Cold War espionage. Expertly read by Jayston, slipping subtly between distinct characters with ease.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
If you like your spies drinking Martinis, with glamour and gadgets against egregious supervillains, this is not the book for you. Instead we are drawn into a world of subterfuge and lies, of duplicity where even truth can be turned on it's head, where black and white merges into dirty grey. No heroes here, only ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances trying to stay alive as they keep their form of faith.
One of le Carre's most masterful cold war spy stories, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, is completely gripping from the breath-holding first pages to the dazzling conclusion. Yet the writing itself is elegant enough to be a fine love missive. This was not my first encounter with the book; I had read it many years ago and seen the film version. But the narration by Michael Jayson brought a freshness and poignancy that had me enthralled with each twist and turn, leaving me as eager to listen on as ever I had been with my very first reading.
First class.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Definitely recommended - particularly for anyone who has spent time in Berlin.
Has The Spy Who Came in from the Cold put you off other books in this genre?
I don't know this genre well - but it wasn't what I was expecting, and the quality of the story positively surprised me.
Which character – as performed by Michael Jayston – was your favourite?
Very well read by Michael Jayston. Resists the temptation to overdo German accents for the German characters.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
Easy to listen to, good narration, no particular effort required to follow the story. Written during and taking place in the cold war, and it shows. It all feels a bit dated, but fun nonetheless, if you like "old-fashioned" thrillers.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
John Le Carre has arguably written the two greatest espionage novels of all time (and maybe several more in the top 10). This being one and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the other. Why are they so good ? To put it simply, brilliant writing coupled with suspense and great characters (certainly from a British perspective) that we want to succeed. Alec Leamas and George Smiley are both fascinating and of course on the right side. The accumulation of evidence and detailed plots are ingenious and also show a respect for the reader. The ending does not disappoint. Brilliant.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Le Carre - always good.
Jayston - a master of narration..
Together - a brilliant team.
The book - one of the best.
Seen the film, read the book, now listened to the book. Just as fresh.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Le Carre's classic spy novel is brought to life by a wonderful reading. Jayston's British voice goes so perfectly with the novel and the character's of "the circus" are brought to life right in front of your ears!
This novel is intricate with great depth of characters and twist and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat guessing till the end. The descriptions of the service, the agents, the "circus" and the enemy brings to life this Cold War classic. Do not go past this novel and this reading!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to be better than the print version?
I first read 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold' in print when I was 12 or 13 and it was the best seller everyone was talking about. In print I tended to rush ahead to see what happened, but the audio version slows you down to savour Le Carre's writing.
What other book might you compare The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to and why?
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - a complex story with double-crosses and suspense.
Which scene was your favorite?
An early scene, when the double agent crosses the border into West Germany on his bicycle.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Oh yes - it will keep you sitting in your car listening to the recording, long after you've pulled into the driveway.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
It has been a long time indeed since I read this title. I recall it being rather dull and somewhat disturbing for a reason I couldn't quite put my finger upon. Now, with the benefit of time, I understand that I was not old enough to appreciate the chilling undertone to a book, where there is so little violence (although a fair number of people die), but an eerie threat permeates the text. That threat is like a fog that I associates with East Berlin, the Wall and all thinks KGB, NKVD and the other counterpoints to MI6 and the CIA. Listening to the narrative now I appreciate the grit, the ugliness and the end justifies everything mendacity that drove people like Smiley, Leamas, Mundt, Control, Fiedler and others. It is the reverse of the superficial sense of fairness of Liz Gold.
This is still a cracker story with a terrific ending. It's not the same as the film (with Richard Burton terrific in the Leamas role) although the core scenes are pretty close. Le Carre had a hand in the screenplay, so I guess that's not so surprising.
As for Michael Jayston's reading, I vacillated between loving it and being frustrated when he dropped the accents. In particular, his Leamas starts with a distinct Burton-like quality, but by the final chapter it had gone completely. I am not sure if that was an intended conceit, but if it was, it did not work for me. In the end I gave it a 3, but overall it is probably about a 3.5.
This was a very enjoyable re-discovery. I am sure it will prompt me to re-read the Karla Trilogy.
Any additional comments?
The narrator was a pro but the story was soooo slllooooowww. Like a movie where you think 'it will get good soon' then realise you just wasted two hours.
Would you consider the audio edition of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to be better than the print version?
one of the best book I read in the past years. I couldn't stop listening.
What did you like best about this story?
the intricate story and the connections to the "real" world.
How refreshing to go back to le Carre's early writing and listen to this. The performance is gripping -- I couldn't listen to the end knowing the outcome as it was too stressful.
Where does The Spy Who Came in from the Cold rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is probably the best spy book ever written. I have read it twice before, but thoroughly enjoyed listening to Jayston's reading. He is perfect for the job.
John le Carre at the height of his powers transports us back to the troubling days of the Berlin wall, mutually assured destruction and intrigue. Written at a time when Britain was still a power with influence in the world; for those who lived through those times it is a powerful evocation of the past. For readers who live in the world of glasnost and Putin there is still plenty to keep you listening.