Customer Reviews

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

5 star:		(88)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

What is to be said about John Le Carré's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD? It's shockingly entertaining, it's genuinely unpredictable, and it doesn't offer up a cheap get-out-of-jail-free ending. The characters are cursory without being shallow, the plot moves with amazing speed, and the action keeps bouncing along. In short, this is pretty much the perfect spy novel. As engrossing as it is realistic, and as absorbing as it is intriguing.

SPY is a book based almost entirely around its plot, and while I usually give a storyline summary in my reviews, I don't think I'll be doing that this time. You see, the novel relies so much upon its double-crosses and back-stabbings that even the parts in the beginning (which are usually fair game for reviewers to spoil) can be puzzling and fun to follow. Every part of the story is interesting. Where other novels would still be setting up the premise, SPY has already started playing the game.

Apart from the deviously clever plot, there is one additional thing I want to single out for praise -- the relationship that takes place between two of the main characters. On paper, it's a fairly standard idea: an older male spy paired with a younger, idealistic, innocent woman. But in execution it's a very nicely unstated bit of romance. It felt real, in part because Le Carré didn't beat us over the head with the details, merely sketched in the broader strokes and let the reader's imagination do the rest.

SPY isn't a story where the characters trade artificially witty banter in between their death-defying action sequences. The protagonist spends most of the book tired, battered and confused. It can be a mystery at times guessing whether he really knows what's going on, whether he is the chess-player or the pawn. When one of the book's villains tries to engage him in a verbal battle over whose society and philosophy is the superior, he can only grumble and offer insults in reply. It's this sort of likable realism that makes the book the success that it is. At the time he wrote this, Le Carré had already joined and left Her Majesty's Secret Service, so I can't help but wonder if the plot, which seems intricate and elaborate in a fictional context, was actually a straightforward retelling of a standard spy-game.

John Le Carre's disillusioned, cynical and spellbinding spy novels are so unique because they are based on a wide knowledge of international espionage. Le Carre, (pen name for David John Moore Cornwell), acquired this knowledge firsthand during his years as an operations agent for the British M15. Kim Philby, the infamous defector, actually gave Le Carre's name to the Russians. The author's professional experience and his tremendous talent as a master storyteller and superb writer make "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" one of the most brilliant novels I have read about spying and the Cold War. Graham Greene certainly agreed with me, or I with him, when he remarked that it is the best spy story he had ever read. The novel won Le Carré the Somerset Maugham Award.

The novel's anti-hero, Alec Leamas, is the antithesis of the glamorous action-hero spy, James Bond. A successful espionage agent for the British during WWII, Leamus continued on with counter-intelligence operations after the war, finding it difficult to adjust to life in peacetime. He eventually became the head of Britain's Berlin Bureau at the height of the Cold War. Leamus, slowly going to seed, drinking too much, world weary, had been losing his German double agents, one by one, to East German Abteilung assassins. Finally, with the loss of his best spy, Karl Riemeck, Leamus has no agents left. His anguish at Riemeck's death is palpable. He has begun to tire of the whole spy game, as his boss at Cambridge Circus, (British Intelligence), seems to understand.

Leamus is called back to London, but instead of being eased out of operations, called "coming in from the Cold," or retiring completely, he is asked to accept one last, dangerous assignment. "Control," the man Leamus reports to, asks him if he is up to "taking-out" Hans Dieter Mundt, a top East German operations agent and the man responsible for the deaths of Leamus' agents. The ploy is elaborate, and if successful, it will conclude with Mundt's own men killing him. With much planning Leamus convincingly changes his lifestyle and sets himself up as bait as a potential defector to the Eastern Block countries. As Leamus works efficiently toward his goal, two unexpected problems come-up - problems that he is unaware of until much later, when it is almost too late to resolve them. First, he falls in love with a young woman, a member of the Communist Party, who was supposed to be part of his cover, nothing more. And second, Control and the Circus have embedded plots within plots to further their end, which they don't see fit to reveal to Leamus - now operating in the dark. Le Carre portrays spying as a dirty game of acting, betrayal, lying, excruciating tension, and assumed identities. The espionage methods of East and West are the same. The only difference is their economic ideologies. There is a seemingly endless game of chess between the superpowers, and spies are as expendable as pawns.

This is a short novel, 219 pages, and very tightly written. However there is much packed into this bleak tale of the espionage business. The story has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster. And the ride is well worth it!
JANA

This book defined a genre. From the elegance of the language, to the betrayal and harsh brutality of the plot's finale, this novel set the standard against which all other espionage fiction of the Cold War would be judged. Whatever the truth of the matter, Le Carre's fiction created a world which is so real that subsequent spy novels departed from its parameters at their peril.

The story at the heart of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold implicates all sides in the struggle in a hypocritical conspiriacy of betrayal and disloyalty. The message seems to be that no good deed goes unpunished and that things certainly are not what they seem.

A truely great book, with characters one cares for and a deftly plotted story that both surprises and distresses the reader. The message of the book is not a pleasant one, but then the reality of Cold War espionage was not pleasant either.

Arguably the best spy novel ever written. It was out of print for years. I envy the readers who can now buy this newly printed copy. I had to make due with a decades old moldy copy that fell apart as I read it. Not that I'm complaining--I loved the book! Le Carre knows his spy stuff. This is not some techno-filled, action-packed, lets-throw-in-a-plot-twist-for-the-h@ll-of-it book. This is a tightly-packed page turner that will lead you by the hand in the beginning and then drop a piano on you at the end. Le Carre's heroes are not Bond, they are overworked, overweight, underpaid, highly intelligent characters who love their country. This book was one of Le Carre's first books, and I feel his very best. The "winners" and "losers" are blurred in the spy game, and this book clearly illustrates that point. If you want to get a feel for what real Cold War spy work was all about, read this book. Highly recommended.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is the quintessential cold war espionage novel. For four decades, this early LeCarre tale has served as the benchmark for 'spy thriller' writing. Reading it fresh in 2004, it's easy to see why.

Though THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was only LeCarre's third novel, his strengths as a storyteller are fully evident here. The opening chapter alone serves as a narrative tour-de-force, swiftly and adroitly introducing the reader to the central characters, their impossible situation, and the hopeless, duplicitous world they inhabit. It is beautfully mirrored by the final chapter, in which the consequences of protagonist Alec Leamas' weakness becomes excruciatingly, tragically clear.

In terms of both style and structure, this early work seems to take its cues from Grahame Greene's '50s novels -- particularly THE QUIET AMERICAN. As in Greene, LeCarre's descriptions here are spare and succinct, with characters and situations quickly sketched in razor-sharp detail. Like Greene, this writer shows that sacrifice of innocents at the hands of arrogant ideologues has become mundane. He reveals the tragic complicity of all-too-human agents like Alec Leamas. Yet LeCarre does not share Greene's belief in personal redemption: His characters take it for granted that they live in an amoral labyrinth in which treachery and triple-cross are simply routine.

Economy and intelligence are hallmarks of this work. Dialogue is terse, sharp; plot complications are introduced with a minimum of fuss. LeCarre sketches his players deftly, in medias res, as they run the gauntlet. Consequently, this 224-page novel can be read in two sittings, yet its characters and situations seem fully realized -- and its tragic conclusion hits with tremendous impact.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is an early work, by a writer still looking to more experienced hands for models. It would be almost a decade before LeCarre truly came into his own, with TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. Still, it's clear that this novel is more than just a superlatively crafted 'spy thriller', more than just a classic of the genre. Forty years after its first publication, LeCarre's tragic tale has lost none of its power: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD remains an extraordinary masterwork, by a supremely gifted and intelligent writer.

A word of warning: "The Spy who Came in From the Cold" is not just an espionage thriller, it's a horror story.

British MI-5 agent Alec Leamas, the eponymous hero of John Le Carre's brutal little espionage masterpiece "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", discovers that being a secret agent at the height of the Cold War is a little like being a man outside in the cold, looking in on the friendly warmth of home and hearth but unable to come in---so close, yet so far. His life depends on keeping up a charade, on cloaking his intentions and lying about his work. He can trust no one but himself, and he keeps an eagle eye on himself.

To make matters worse, a botched defection at the Berlin Wall sends Leamas's career into free fall, prompting his recall to London, a subsequent reassignment to a desk job in Personnel, and, simultaneously, the hatching of one of British intelligence chief Control's more byzantine little schemes: use Leamas's fall from grace as a means of ferreting out and destroying Hans Dieter Mundt, a high-ranking East German master spy and Leamas's shadowy nemesis.

To say more would be unfair to the reader. Le Carre, himself a former British intelligence officer, is perfectly suited to composing the elaborate, excruciating fencing match between London and Moscow that lies at the heart of so many of his best tales. The typical Le Carre protagonist and his handlers are not James Bondian pulp heroes with Union Jacks painted on the pommel of their 9MM Walther PPKs; instead, they tend to be bland, non-descript ciphers, poker-faced and cynical creatures who hide their machinations under bland exteriors.

"The Spy" is Le Carre at his deftest, and the Cold War at its coldest. Leamas is re-introduced into the world as a potential defector, but his ruse is haunted by the unexpected relationship with a British librarian he leaves behind in London. And really, the relationship, and the emotions it awakens in this grizzled Cold Warrior, is what makes "Spy" so compulsively entertaining and riveting: Alec Leamas wants to love and to reveal himself, just as his East German interrogator Fiedler wants desperately to believe in the purity of the Revolution and in the ideals of Communism.

But this is a Le Carre novel, and ideals and emotions are the luxuries of the dead or the doomed.

"The Spy" has the advantage of excellent pacing and deft characterization, and as with many of Le Carre's best novels, it manages to condense a considerable amount of treachery in a minimum of exposition. Le Carre is not only a good storyteller and a master at plotting out the grim duel between his spies, he is also a consummately gifted writer who uses words like a surgeon uses a scalpel. Best of all, "The Spy" is a nastily clever work, in which the plot turns in on itself suddenly and viciously, casting some light on a dark arena in which no one can be trusted.

"The Spy who Came in From the Cold" is a classic in espionage and a timeless literary masterpiece, but it is also a ruthless and jolting work whose cynicism is horrific. It is a bracingly good read and completely unforgettable.

This is it - the best spy novel ever written, so good that not even Le Carre has ever been able to match it. If your image of espionage is formed by the cheesy gadgetry and high adventure of James Bond, then get ready for one very rude awakening. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a heartbreaking story, full of lonely people sadly making their way through a cold world - the Cold War was never more chilly than it is here. It's a sad and depressing book, but a smashingly good one, too. Read it.

This is the first John Le Carre book that I've read, and given The Spy Who's renowned status, I came to it with high expectations. This was especially so, as I had previously enjoyed a number of articles by, and interviews with, David Cornwell/John Le Carre. His insight and turn of phrase was something that I already held in great respect, and I expected this book to be no different. However, whilst his central thesis - "a plague on both your houses" is compelling and beautifully drawn, I found that overall, it was somewhat bloodless. I wasn't expecting a "shaken, not stirred" take on Cold War espionage, but, for a book that is essentially character driven, the depictions often seemed more than a little antiseptic. This surprised me, and was completely at odds with the author's ability to convey the essence of his characters, using just a few strokes of the pen. It was just that there seemed to be no follow through. Indeed I often felt that the story was unfolding on a black and white telly, whilst I viewed it through the wrong end of a telescope. So, whilst I would recommend it, I did find it a little dry, and had to push myself a bit to complete it. However, I will go through it again, and will be interested to see how it reads a second time.

Considered the best spy novel ever written, this is a quick, bleak book. It is widely praised for its realistic portrayal of Cold War spycraft, and rightfully so. There's hardly any 007-style action, no gizmos, no babes, just an elaborate, nasty plot. More or less makes all other Cold War spy novels redundant in its efficient depicted of an old British spy making his last big gambit before being retired. Tight prose and lots of tension.

Graham Greene, who was possibly the best novelist of the twentieth century and who was no slouch at the spy novel himself, call The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, "The best spy story I have ever read." When I found out that Greene had said that, I had to finally pick this book up and see if its reputation was deserved.

In my opinion, it was. Easily. It's the best spy novel I've read, too. I was riveted from the beginning. Le Carre won't ever let the reader become oriented. Nothing's as it appears. Ever.

The characters are compelling. The plot's twisted (a good thing). And the novel just keeps hanging around because the implications Le Carre touches on (politically and philosophically) are far-reaching (well into today's milieu) and probing.

It's a must-read for a lot of reasons.