"Treason is very much a matter of habit." -George Smiley
Sometime last year I read that the British writer John Le Carré (the pen name of David Cornwell) was considered to be one of the greatest spy novelists of all time. I've always loved mystery novels, but the spy genre tends to be a very different animal altogether. And while spy novels sound like fun, I had never really found a great book to reel me in. However, last summer I ended up reading the American-based The Romeo Flag
by Carolyn Hougan and enjoyed the quiet, intellectual style her spies possessed.
by Carolyn Hougan and enjoyed the quiet, intellectual style her spies possessed. Luckily, John Le Carré's novels seem to have a similar understated intensity to them. Browsing through Amazon I discovered that Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
is considered to be one of his best novels (along with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
and A Perfect Spy
). (An interesting side note, the term "mole" was first used by Le Carré in this novel.)The novel takes place during the height of the Cold War and focuses on the recently fired George Smiley, who is asked to return to his British Intelligence stomping grounds to find a long-ago implanted Russian mole. The character of Smiley goes against the suave James Bond-type made famous by Ian Fleming. Instead, Smiley is short, overweight, with a beautiful wife who has left him. He is later described by one of his agents: "You thought, to look at him, that he couldn't cross the road alone, but you might as well have offered protection to a hedge hog."
The spywork laid out in Tinker, Tailor
is not flashy, or even exciting. Instead, it involves pouring through paperwork and the ability to analyze vast networks of spies and their handlers. He also manages to convey the strangeness of the double agent's life, working his way up in an organization while slowly destroying it in such a way as not to attract attention. Le Carré has the gift of possessing sparse, yet descriptive prose, allowing his work to more than just another spy novel. Le Carré's attention to the vast details present in British Intelligence also sets his novel apart; the relationships, office hierarchies and the constant watchfulness present in all its agents. The detailed focus isn't surprising since Le Carré spent the 1950s and 1960s working for M15 and M16 running agents and conducting interrogations. His intelligence career came to an end when he was betrayed by Kim Philby, a British double-agent who was part of the Cambridge Five. In the book's introduction, Le Carré indicates that he used Philby as a model for his KGB mole.
