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

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of John le Carré’s last Smiley novel.George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin'.

A master chronicler of the deceptions and betrayals of ordinary people caught in political conflict, le Carré portrays the dark side of the unbridled capitalism. The Constant Gardener is a magnificent exploration of the new world order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time.

The Berlin Wall is down, the Cold War is over, but the world's second oldest profession is very much alive. Smiley accepts an invitation to dine with the eager young men and women of the Circus' latest intake; and over coffee and brandy, by flickering firelight, he beguilingly offers them his personal thoughts on espionage past, present, and future. In doing so, he prompts one of his former Circus colleagues into a searching examination of his own eventful secret life.

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged, and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess 'the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin'. Miss Ailsa Brimley is in a quandary. She's received a peculiar letter from Mrs Stella Rode, saying that she fears her husband – an assistant master at Carne School - is trying to kill her. Reluctant to go to the police, Miss Brimley calls upon her old wartime colleague, George Smiley.

This is a story of corrupt liaisons between criminal elements in the new Russian states and the world of legitimate finance in the West. It is also an intimate portrait of two families. Masterful and prescient, le Carré is writing at the top of his creative powers, and the central protagonist, Oliver Single, is one of his most fascinating characters.

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian's evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian's family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea.

George Smiley has become acting chief of the Circus, but the credibility of the British Secret Service has been shattered. Smiley's adversary is Karla, the Soviet officer who masterminded the Circus's ruin. His battleground is Hong Kong and his choice of weapons is the Honourable Gerald Westerby. A brand new Radio 4 full cast dramatisation of the classic George Smiley novel by John le Carre, starring Simon Russell Beale. This is the sixth in the major new series of all eight George Smiley spy thrillers on radio.

A Murder of Quality, set in the early 1960s, sees George Smiley investigating a murder in a public school. When the wife of one of the masters is found bludgeoned to death, Smiley, out of loyalty to an old friend, agrees to look into the case. But his investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night?

The Constant Gardener (Abridged): The beautiful Tessa Quayle is murdered near Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. And her putative African lover and travelling companion has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa’s husband, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. On his way he meets terror, violence and conspiracy, but his greatest discovery is the woman he barely had time to love.

A corporate lawyer from the House of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside for crimes that he does not understand. A children’s entertainer in Devon is hauled to his local bank late at night to explain a monumental influx of cash. A Russian freighter is arrested in the Black Sea.... The logical connection of these events and more is one of the many pleasures of this story of love, deceit, family and the triumph of humanity.

The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal. Then Leo Harting - an embassy nobody - goes missing with a case full of confidential files. London sends Alan Turner to control the damage, but he soon realises that neither side really wants Leo found - alive.

Der britische Agent Alec Leamas ist für Ostdeutschland zuständig. Undercover wechselt er die Seiten, um seine Informanten zu schützen...

New spies with new loyalties, old spies with old ones; terror as the new mantra; decent people wanting to do good but caught in the moral maze; all the sound, rational reasons for doing the inhuman thing; the recognition that we cannot safely love or pity and remain good "patriots" -- this is the fabric of John le Carré's fiercely compelling audiobook A Most Wanted Man.

A half-starved young Russian man is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse around his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa.... Annabel, an idealistic young German civil-rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. In pursuit of his mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the 60-year-old scion of Brue Frères, a failing British bank based in Hamburg.

When word reaches 'The Department' - an ailing section of British intelligence - that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to show Control and Smiley, their rivals over at the Circus, that The Department still has value. Former spy Fred Leiser is lured back from retirement to investigate, and manages to cross the border into East Germany in a dangerous night-time operation.

In 2008, a covert counter-terror operation codenamed Wildlife is mounted on the Rock of Gibraltar. This one is right off the books: the target codenamed PUNTER; the English boys on land, the American mercenaries by sea; Kit Probyn, Foreign Office upright veteran with a safe pair of hands and no previous experience of the dark arts, to be the Minister's eyes and ears on the ground—his red telephone. Toby Bell, rising Foreign Office star and the Minister's Personal Private Secretary, has been kept out of the loop. Amidst whispers of private armies, dicey intelligence, he decides to investigate.

John le Carré was one of the greatest novelists of his generation but also had an extraordinary life, from his childhood with a con man father to his inimitable career as a writer. From his involvement in the Cold War, time in Berlin, travels to Vietnam and engagement with world leaders, his experiences were truly remarkable. This collection of letters reveals John le Carré—the man, the writer and his world—for the first time and most intimately.

When Tessa Quayle is murdered in northern Kenya, it leaves her husband, career diplomat Justin, searching for answers. Over the course of investigating the circumstances and causes behind her murder, he discovers a drug testing and experimentation scandal that stretches beyond the borders of Kenya. The corruption needed to keep it quiet has taken root in more than one institution he thought he could trust—including the civil servants of the British Foreign Service.

Abandoned by his parents, Bruno Salvador has long looked for guidance. He found it in Mr. Anderson of British Intelligence. Working for Anderson in a clandestine facility, Salvo (as he's known) translates intercepted phone calls, bugged recordings, and snatched voice mail messages. When Anderson sends him to a mysterious island to interpret during a secret conference, Bruno thinks he is helping Britain--but then he hears something he should not have.

The beautiful Tessa Quayle is murdered near Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. And her putative African lover and travelling companion has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa’s husband, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. On his way he meets terror, violence and conspiracy, but his greatest discovery is the woman he barely had time to love.