The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

This is the quintessential spy novel.

I was immediately drawn to the suspense of this book. The novel begins at the Berlin Wall, where British intelligence agent Alec Leamas helplessly watches as East German guards murder his colleague.

As I followed the elaborate British plan to get revenge on an East German official, I had the nagging feeling that I was missing something. When I finally got to the end, I realized that I had been duped—much like many of the characters in the novel. 

While John Le Carre wrote many fine books, with some unforgettable classics at his peak, this novel was a revelation.

In this short book, he captures the character of the wonderfully crusty, dissatisfied Leamas, the interdependence of love and betrayal, the frustration and interminable waiting of spying, and the moral bankruptcy essential to pursuing higher objectives. 

But for me, the perfect ending, devastating and true to both the character and the Cold War Berlin setting, makes this book memorable.

I have read virtually all of Le Carre’s books because I don’t believe anyone goes so deeply into the psyche of men who enlisted in the fight for perhaps noble reasons but who now continue on almost as automatons. They have not only lost their idealism, their morality and even humanity are either gone or hanging by a thread. It is what I imagine is the furthest edge of what can happen to young soldiers who don’t die—just keep soldiering.

I don’t think anyone has done it better.

This is the classic espionage novel.

It is set in 1950s Germany, grey, squalid, and morally bleak, with cynical characters, treachery, marvelous plot twists, betrayal, and surprise. Le Carré’s Spy Who Came in From The Cold defined the espionage genre. He writes in a spare, simple style devoid of description, creating realistic and sordidly believable characters.

A gem of a book and another one that I read again and again. It’s not just the wonderful writing and the moody atmosphere; I love the way that le Carré explores the moral ambiguity in spying during this early part of the Cold War.

I read an interview in which le Carré talked about the pleasure of secrecy and enjoying the feeling that you know something that others don’t. I get that "I’ve got a secret" idea and I’ve used that thought in my own work. Le Carré was also a spy.

The Cold War is the war I was born into. No writer has chronicled the competition between superpowers better than LeCarre.

When Alec Leamas falls for Liz, he’s not aware of the depth of his feelings until she’s murdered as a pawn in the great game between Russia and the West. The revenge he seeks and the resolution he acquires are among LeCarre’s best efforts.

I was riveted to every scene. 

I read this book, soon after it was published in 1963 in the middle of the Cold War. I was young and naïve. It grabbed me then.

This year I picked it up and read it again, a good test of a book’s endurance. It was as vital as ever – a British agent sent across the Iron Curtain, and some brutal, arresting, questioning, and occasionally enlightening things that followed. It became the first of a new and powerful genre, the espionage novel with a flawed spy, moral inconsistencies, deceptions, and an ending that reflected the inconsistencies of the time.… show more.

What can I state about the late author, John Le Carre, that hasn't always been said by others, critics and readers alike.   

All I can say is that when I first read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold years ago, I was riveted from the very first page. My initial reading occurred in the heyday of the James Bond insulting nonsense, and Le Carre's spy novel was a refreshing, truthful telling about some ugly facts about Western spy agencies. My impression after my second reading remains the same.

“But it’s the world, it’s gone mad.” It sums up a spy world in Alec Leamas finds himself turfed from his position by British Intelligence for a string of failures in Soviet-held East Berlin.

Ultimately, he joins East Berlin’s Intelligence only to make one desperate to escape from them. It was a world of agents and double agents with no end in sight.

I like the book for its fast pace and incredible character sketches that made them come alive in their triumphs and failures and memorable long after you finish the book.