Showing results by author "John le Carré" in All Categories

When General Vladimir, a Soviet defector, is brutally murdered in London's Hampstead Heath on his way to meet a junior Circus agent, George Smiley finds himself being pulled from retirement—again. As Vladimir's former case officer, Smiley has the privilege of cleaning up and burying the the mess. But one last message from the general, sent just before he died, hints at a major operation led by spymaster Karla, Smiley's Soviet counterpart. Thrust back into the world of Cold War espionage in pursuit of his longtime nemesis, Smiley assembles a small team of trusted operatives.

Pulled out of (forced) retirement by his old protégé, Peter Guillam, George Smiley must determine who among the high command at the British Secret Intelligence Service is in fact a Soviet spy—one who’s been climbing their way up the ranks for decades. The stakes are high: the mole is behind more than one failed operation and has lain waste to some of their best informant networks.

In the era of perestroika and glasnost in the USSR, a manuscript is meant to be delivered to one Bartholomew Barley Blair, a British publisher known for his eccentricity. The manuscript, penned by Russian scientist Yakov Savelyev, contains critical information detailing the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities and the state of their missile program. Except—it doesn't reach Barley. Instead, after exchanging hands several times, it ends up in the hands of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and they're quite interested in why Barley was the intended recipient of such a document.

The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carré's best-selling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatisations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels.

In the late 1960s, in the town of Bonn, capital of West Germany, a British Embassy officer by the name of Leo Harting goes missing—and forty-three confidential-or-higher files with him. Dispatched from the British Foreign Office to investigate, Alan Turner arrives in Bonn to find riots, protests, and a tenuous balance of power. As if there isn’t enough pressure, the embassy’s head of Chancery, Rawley Bradfield, makes it clear he has no intentions of making Turner’s investigation an easy one.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the creator of the iconic spy George Smiley, John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl is hailed as one of the author’s best, and the favorite of the likes of Steven King and John Grisham.

After an unremarkable interview, Circus agent George Smiley determines the subject of a standard security check—a civil servant in the Foreign Office named Samuel Fennan—poses no threat, nor presents any reason for suspicion of espionage. Hours later, Samuel Fennan is found dead by suicide. Suddenly finding himself under intense scrutiny, Smiley realizes the Circus intends to blame him for Fennan's death. Rather than remain idle, Smiley begins his own investigation into the nature of the man's demise.

For Alisa Brimley, editor of the small magazine Christian Voice, receiving a letter from a longtime subscriber might otherwise be a perfectly normal occasion—except Stella Rode, the reader in question, writes that her husband is planning to kill her. Brimley calls upon an old wartime friend to help her investigate: retired Circus spy, George Smiley. Before Smiley can begin, Rode is found murdered, and Brimley asks Smiley to venture to the small town of Carne, home of the elite Carne School where Rode's husband is a public school junior master.

Two young lovers treat themselves to a once-in-a-lifetime holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. He’s an austere tutor at Oxford. She’s a sparky rising London barrister. Their native Britain is floundering in debt. On the second day of their holiday they encounter a rich, charismatic fifty-something Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula, wears a diamond-encrusted Rolex watch, has a tattoo on the knuckle of his right thumb and wants a game of tennis.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the bestselling novel by John le Carré, starring James Fox, Harriet Walter and Julian Rhind-Tutt. Magnus Pym, Counsellor at the British Embassy, is hosting a dinner party at his home in Vienna when he receives an unexpected telephone call that will profoundly affect his life. Once the guests have gone, Pym breaks the news to his wife, Mary: his father, Rick, is dead. In a state of shock, he says something Mary cannot understand - 'After all these years, I'm free.'

The most autobiographical of John le Carré’s works, A Perfect Spy follows two narratives: the manhunt for the double agent Magnus Pym, and the makings of the man in question—told in his own words.

It’s the early 1960s, and the newly built Berlin Wall looms large. British intelligence officer Alec Leamas, caught in its shadow, feels the chill all too keenly: the preceding years have seen nearly every member of his Berlin spy network either murdered or captured. To him, the prospect of a desk job feels more like solace than purgatory. When he’s summoned to London by Control, it seems as though he’s finally being called home.

The mole has been purged from the Circus, and George Smiley, newly made chief of the agency, has both rebuilding and revenge in his sights. To fully eradicate the threat, Smiley must trace back the treachery to its very roots. When his investigation leads him to Hong Kong—and what appears to be a dead end—Smiley enlists Jerry Westerby, an international sports journalist and “occasional” Circus asset. In the Far East, Westerby will have to untangle a web of corruption spread across a region with a reputation for testing loyalties and allegiances.

With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress, Emma. But when both Emma and Cranmer's star double agent and lifelong rival, Larry Pettifer, disappears, Cranmer is suddenly on the run, searching for his brilliant protégé, desperately eluding his former colleagues, in a frantic journey across Europe and into the lawless, battered landscapes of Moscow and Southern Russia, to save whatever of his life he has left.

When a Russian émigré is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, Smiley is called out of retirement to exorcise some Cold War ghosts from his clandestine past. What follows is Smiley the human being at his most vulnerable and Smiley the case officer at his most brilliant; and it takes to a thrilling conclusion his career-long, serpentine battle with the enigmatic and ruthless Russian spymaster Karla.

Harry Pendel is the charismatic proprietor of Pendel and Braithwaite Limitada of Panama, through whose doors everyone who is anyone in Central America passes. Andrew Osnard, mysterious and fleshy, is a spy. His secret mission is two-pronged: to keep a watchful eye on the political manoeuvrings leading up to the American handover of the Panama Canal on 31st December 1999; and to secure for himself the immense private fortune that has until now churlishly eluded him.

With the Cold War at a fever pitch, though, a potential assignment is only ever one defector-turned-informant away. Alerted to the possibility of missile activity from the Soviets on the West German border, the long stagnant Department leaps at the chance to restore some of their cache in the intelligence community. Director Leclerc hunts down former field agent Fred Leiser and sends him beyond the wall to East Germany—tying the Department's fate to his.

With his time in British intelligence drawing to a close, veteran spy “Ned” asks his colleague George Smiley to address his graduating class of trainee spies in Sarratt. Smiley’s remarks on espionage in the wake of the Cold War serve as trigger and backdrop for a series of recollections and memories of Ned’s many decades as a British spy.

The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, British soldier’s son born 1947 in a new independent Pakistan, and Sasha, refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West.

The two men meet first as students in riot-torn West Berlin of the late 60s, again in the grimy looking-glass of Cold War espionage and, most terribly, in today’s world of terror. Spanning 56 years, Absolute Friends is a savage fable of our times.

It is the third summer of perestroika. Niki Landau, philanderer and travelling rep, attends the first Moscow audio fair and is asked by beautiful young Katya to take a parcel back to England. It’s addressed to Barley Blair, jazz-player and drinker, and contains information vital to the defence of the West. But times and heroes are changing. And Barley Blair is a man who makes his own rules of engagement.