In the first two novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), le Carre introduces and establishes his legendary secret agent, George Smiley. It is Smiley's people and milieu that, in book after bestselling book, provided the soil out of which the modern espionage novel grew and flourished. However, it was his third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963), that put le Carre on the literary map. Temporarily leaving George Smiley aside, le Carre created the disillusioned agent Alec Leamas, and placed him squarely in the middle of Cold War Berlin. Questions of honor, trust, truth, and the meaning of "enemy" and "friend" all come into deadly play in this complex tale of convenient lies, twisted loyalties, and personal betrayal.
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