Is to quote John le Carré and place myself in some office from the mid-XNUMXth century, perhaps in Bonn, or perhaps in Moscow. A rancid smell of tobacco is slightly disguised by the leather aroma of the sofas. A desk phone rings, with that stridency of the telephones of yesteryear.
Among the darkness and the wisps of smoke, which rise against the light in that heavy dusk, I see the silhouette of that bald guy, the maker of the smoke. I don't know if he's looking at me or not... Finally he picks up the phone and starts a conversation in Russian that increases the tone by the minute. I take the opportunity to escape from there…
All this with one name: John le Carré. All my admiration for this writer who made his name the watchword of the greatest spy stories (at least in its most commercial aspect) that were published during the 60s, 70s, 80s ... and even today.
And without dwelling on the particularities and anecdotes of this writer who has recently abandoned us, I go on to cite those that for me are his essential books.
3 recommended novels by John le Carré
The spy that emerged from the cold
Later novels may be technically better than this one. But I don't think any of them better represent the converted writer from his previous activity in the British intelligence service.
Summary: le Carré brings to light the somewhat murky interiors of international espionage at the hands of Alec Leamas, a British agent during the early years of the cold war in Berlin.
Leamas is responsible for keeping his double agents protected and alive, but the East Germans begin to kill them, so his superior, Control, asks him to return to London not to kick him out but to give him a somewhat complicated mission. . With this classic suspense novel, le Carré changed the rules of the game.
This is the story of a latest assignment that falls on an agent who desperately wants to retire from his spy career.
The tailor of Panama
Interesting proposal in which we empathize with a random guy who ends up being hit by international espionage. A resource used several times but turned in the hands of le Carré into a much more empathetic adventure for the reader.
Summary: A simple man is involved in an espionage case that ends in tragedy. Everything happens in Panama, when the day that the agreement to return the Canal to the local government is due to be fulfilled.
Pendel is the best tailor in the country. His hands measure and cut the suits of the president of Panama, the general in command of the US troops in the Canal, and all the important people.
His life goes smoothly, until an ambitious and clumsy British agent bursts into it and turns him into his source of inside information. The tailor from Panama was taken to the cinema with great success.
Smiley people
It's funny, but when I was a kid, I came across this novel in my father's library. I sat down to read it like I was an older guy, almost feeling important. I had to abandon it to the second page. I did not understand anything. Years later I threw the glove on him and I did savor a great story about spies and counter-spies, about a dark unfathomable world, not even for those who walk through it ...
Summary: Dawn in London, George Smiley, former director of Circus, a select group of spies for the British Secret Service, rises from his lonely bed in retirement with the news of the murder of one of his former agents.
Forced to return to active duty, Smiley will contact the rest of the Circus members - strangers in no man's land - through Paris, London, Germany and Switzerland to prepare for the inevitable final duel in the Berlin of the Cold War, with his enemy environment, the KGB agent, Karla. Le Carré is one of the most important espionage novel authors of the last 50 years.
