Smiley's People

The first and best of my list from the master spy himself.

It is a complicated plot that is skillfully and gradually laid bare in what starts as a murder investigation by a retired MI6 agent and ends as a political coup for the ‘Circus’ (MI6).

A great read from the start; I think this is one of Le Carre’s best and one that helped influence me in my writing. The book is much better than the TV or movie versions, and le Carre’s characterisation of Smiley is superb.

This is also a controversial choice, given that le Carré fans are largely split between The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. But for me, Smiley’s People is the true pinnacle of le Carré’s work with Smiley completely developed and totally in charge while the plot is based on a single, very credible intelligence operation that brings the Tinker Tailor trilogy to a riveting end. John le Carré studied at the University of Bern, where the key part of the operation takes place and went on to work for the British Security Service… show more.

John Le Carre's novels will over time become literary treasures defining the style, atmospherics, and morality of the 44-year-long struggle between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The moral ambiguity of the Cold War in comparison to World War II is best explained and manifested by Le Carre's fiction. I picked Smiley's People for this list but my favorite three books of his genre also include The Spy Who Came Into The Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.