George Smiley Series

This series plunges readers into the tense world of Cold War espionage, following the enigmatic George Smiley. He navigates a complex landscape of betrayal, political intrigue, and moral ambiguity with quiet brilliance. Each story explores the intricate nature of human relationships and the profound sacrifices made in the name of duty. Prepare for a journey of suspense, psychological depth, and unforgettable characters.

George Smiley Novel: The Looking Glass War

Recommended Reading Order

Call for the dead
John le Carré
239 pages
9 hours of reading
George Smiley had liked the man and now the man was dead. Suicide. But why? An anonymous letter had alleged that Foreign Office man Samuel Fennan had been a member of the Communist Party as a student before the war. Nothing very unusual for his generation. Smiley had made it clear that the investigation, little more than a routine security check, was over and that the file on Fennan could be closed. Next day, Fennan was dead with a note by his body saying his career was finished and he couldn’t go on. Page Numbers Source ISBN: B000H305PK
1
3.8
A Murder of Quality
John le Carré
John le Carré's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him -- and his hero, British secret Service Agent George Smiley -- unprecedented worldwide acclaim. George Smiley was simply doing a favor for Miss Ailsa Brimley, and old friend and editor of a small newspaper. Miss Brimley had received a letter from a worried reader: "I'm not mad. And I know my husbad is trying to kill me." But the letter had arrived too late: its scribe, the wife of an assistant master at the distinguished Carne School, was already dead. So George Smiley went to Carne to listen, ask questions, and think. And to uncover, layer by layer, the complex network of skeletons and hatreds that comprised that little English institution.
2
3.6
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
John le Carré
229 pages
9 hours of reading
In this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With unsurpassed knowledge culled from his years in British Intelligence, le Carre brings to light the shadowy dealings of international espionage in the tale of a British agent who longs to end his career but undertakes one final, bone-chilling assignment. When the last agent under his command is killed and Alec Leamas is called back to London, he hopes to come in from the cold for good. His spymaster, Control, however, has other plans. Determined to bring down the head of East German Intelligence and topple his organization, Control once more sends Leamas into the fray -- this time to play the part of the dishonored spy and lure the enemy to his ultimate defeat.
3
4.1
George Smiley Novel: The Looking Glass War
John le Carré
289 pages
11 hours of reading
A Cold War thriller from the master of spy fiction, John le Carré's The Looking Glass War is a gripping novel of double-crosses, audacious bluffs and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, published in Penguin Modern Classics. When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumour of a missile base near the West German border, it seems like the perfect opportunity to regain some political standing in the Intelligence market place. The Cold War is at its height and the Department is dying for a piece of the action. Swiftly becoming carried away by fear and pride, the Department and her officers send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate becomes inseparable from the Department's. If you enjoyed The Looking Glass War , you might like le Carré's The Secret Pilgrim , also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'A devastating and tragic record of human, not glamour, spies' New York Herald Tribune 'A book of rare and great power' Financial Times
4
3.7
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
John le Carré
George Smiley is assigned to uncover the identity of the double agent operating in the highest levels of British intelligence
5
4.1
Ctihodný školáček
John le Carré
600 pages
21 hours of reading
Po románu Jeden musí z kola ven je Ctihodný školáček druhým počinem autorovy volné trilogie spojené tajemným sovětským superšpionem „Karlou“... Je rok 1974 a George Smiley se snaží postavit britskou tajnou službu přezdívanou Cirkus znovu na nohy, poté co její pověst a síť kontaktů zničil dvojitý agent Bill Haydon. Úzký tým jeho spolupracovníků přijde na to, že v Hongkongu operuje vážený obchodník Drake Kao ve prospěch Karly a tím britské kolonii škodí; ale agenti objeví i to, že Drake má v rudé Číně bratra Nelsona, vysoce postaveného státního úředníka, a že se bratři mají v Hongkongu tajně setkat. O únos a vytěžení Nelsona usiluje i CIA, sice spolupracovník Britů, ale jen občasný a málo spolehlivý. Aby operace únosu proběhla úspěšně, Smiley najme spícího agenta Jerryho Westerbyho, jemuž se sice přezdívá „ctihodný školáček“, protože jako šlechtic vychodil ty nejlepší školy, ale jeho otec zbankrotoval. Jerry se tedy živí jako člověk na špinavou práci v nebezpečných situacích.
6
Smiley's People
John le Carré
400 pages
14 hours of reading
John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge and have earned him -- and his hero, British Secret Service agent George Smiley -- unprecedented worldwide acclaim.Rounding off his astonishing vision of a clandestine world, master storyteller le Carre perfects his art in Smiley's People.In London at dead of night, George Smiley, sometime acting Chief of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service), is summoned from his lonely bed by news of the murder of an ex-agent. Lured back to active service, Smiley skillfully maneuvers his people -- the no-men of no-man's land -- into crisscrossing Paris, London, Germany, and Switzerland as he prepares for his own final, inevitable duel on the Berlin border with his Soviet counterpart and archenemy, Karla.
7
4.4
The Secret Pilgrim
John le Carré
The Cold War is over and Ned has been demoted to the training academy. He asks his old mentor, George Smiley, to address his passing-out class. There are no laundered reminiscences; Smiley speaks the truth - perhaps the last the students will ever hear.
8
3.8
A legacy of spies
John le Carré
This is the first novel in over twenty-five years to feature George Smiley, le Carr�'s most beloved character. Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinised under disturbing criteria by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications. Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carr� has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
9
4.0