East German Authorities Guard Control Point At Potsdamer Platz, 1961
From the National Archives (Special Media Archives Services Division, College Park, MD)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré New York: Pocket Books, [2001], c1963.
x, 212 p. ; 21 cm.
I recently saw the critically praised movie Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and decided that I had to read a book by John Le Carré. I've wanted to read Le Carré for a while. I really enjoyed another film based on his more recent work - The Constant Gardner - and interviews I'd seen of him on Democracy Now!
I wasn't disappointed in the Spy Who Came in From the Cold, but - like the confusing plot of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - you have to give the novel a lot of attention. The plot is a twisting confusion of agents, double-agents, intrigue and lethal spycraft.
What brings this novel above the level of a simple spy thriller is its crisp writing and its philosophical musings on the ethical motives and justifications raised by covert actions. Le Carré offers no easy answers, but invites his readers - once they have figured out just what happened and have caught their breaths - to wrestle with the moral dilemmas raised in the novel.
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