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Cover of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

John le Carré

Part of the George Smiley series

  • 247 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1963
  • 144 editions
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1 About this book

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1963 Cold War spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a British intelligence officer, being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer.

It serves as a sequel to le Carré's previous novels Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, which also featured the fictitious British intelligence organisation, "The Circus", and its agents George Smiley and Peter Guillam.

  • Spy stories
  • Thrillers, espionage
  • Mystery and suspense
  • Espionage
  • Thrillers
  • Cold War
  • Intelligence officers
  • Intelligence service

2 About John le Carré

1931–2020

David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 1931 – 12 December 2020), known by his pen name John le Carré ( lə-KARR-ay), was an English author. Many of his espionage novels have been adapted for film or television. He has been described as a "sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", and is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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