"Go back to Whitehall and look for more spies on your drawing boards."
George Smiley is no one's idea of a spyβwhich is perhaps why he's such a natural. But Smiley apparently made a mistake. After a routine security interview, he concluded that the affable Samuel Fennan had nothing to hide. Why, then, did the man from the Foreign Office shoot himself in the head only hours later? Or did he?
The heart-stopping tale of intrigue that launched both novelist and spy, Call for the Dead is an essential introduction to le CarrΓ©'s chillingly amoral universe.
Review
'Brilliant. Realistic. Constant suspense ... excellent writing' -- Observer 'Intelligent, thrilling, surprising ... makes most cloak-and-dagger stuff taste of cardboard' -- Sunday Telegraph
From the Back Cover
Praise for Call for the Dead
"A finely wrought and compelling admixture of three types of crime writing: the novel of action and excitement that we commonly call a thriller, the spy story, and the detective story."-- P. D. James, from the Foreword
"A subtle and acute story of counter-espionage marked by restraint, indirection, and intelligence."-- The New York Times Book Review
Praise for John Le CarrΓ©
"Le CarrΓ© is more than just a great storyteller-- he captures the Zeitgeist itself."-- Tom Wolfe
"No other contemporary novelist has more durably enjoyed the twin badges of being both well-read and well-regarded."-- Scott Turow
"He is one of the half-dozen best novelists now working in English."-- Chicago Sun-Times
"Le CarrΓ© is one of the best novelists-- of any kind-- we have."-- Vanity Fair
"A brilliant linguistic artist with a keen eye for the exotic and not-so-exotic locale, a crafty, moralizer with an occasional bent for sentiment."-- The Wall Street Journal