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Apr 24, 2011

Kemper rated it:

It’s been over 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and as someone who grew up in the 1970s - 80s, reading about dueling Cold War spies gave me a weird nostalgic rush. “The Soviets? East Germans? Damn! We used to HATE those guys!”

In this era where decades of misdeeds by intelligence agencies are common knowledge and the notion of elaborate spy games are widely used fictional plots, it’s a little hard to imagine how groundbreaking this book was back in 1963. James Bond was in full More...

3 comments like (15 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2011

Stephen rated it:

4.5 to 5.0 stars. Okay to begin this review I want to point out that, except for a number of Tom Clancy novels, I have only read a handful of spy thrillers so what impressed me about this book may be pretty typical stuff in the better works of the genre. Also, I have not seen the movie adaptation based and knew nothing about the plot coming in (a condition I highly recommend if you have the chance).

With that introduction made, I LOVED THIS BOOK. For a book published in 1963, once yo More...

11 comments like (27 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

David rated it:

Having just indulged my sweet tooth with Ian Fleming's spy candy, I sampled the more refined pleasures of John le Carré, who wrote a tense spy thriller without any gadgets or heroics or sultry seductresses. Instead, Alec Leamas is a middle-aged alcoholic on the verge of retirement from the spy game; burned out, embittered, and about to be cashiered for a string of failures while running England's spy network in Cold War Berlin. He's recruited for one final mission: to target the dangerous East G More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2007

Alison rated it:

I had never read anything by John Le Carre, but knew that he was wildly popular. I can see why this book was an instant classic. It was short, perfectly edited, but manages to pack more plot into it's 212 pages than any other book I know.

The story is of Leamus, a spy for Britain, working in East Berlin during the Cold War. He wants to leave the trade, but is lured in for one final mission (aren't they all?) He is to pretend that he was let go by the British, and that he has spira More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2007

Olivia rated it:

more terms of art and other things that have become a bit dated than book:the russia house, but still, just devastating and brilliant. this was my introduction to author:john le carre, and i quickly saw why everyone has always admired him (thanks for passing this on to me, teddo).
now i need to read some of the smiley novels. i just can't get over his style, his inventiveness, his complete imagination (either these things happened directly to him or he's a helluva genius). even if they did More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2008

Casey rated it:

Spoiler Alert: His mom had soup and hot chocolate for him.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2008

Ebookwormy rated it:

Voted #6 of 100 best mysteries of all time by Mystery Writers of America (www.mysterywriters.org) and see also World Magazine January 12/19, 2008, pg. 27).

An excellent read. This book is much drier and less sensational than the James Bond genre, and i have to say I like that. Generally, I'm not into the spy novel scene; I found the dose of reality engaging.

The plot is complicated, but easily understood. The reader is given the feel of what it is like to be an agent who More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 03, 2009

Dionisia rated it:

I was unprepared for the journey this book would take me on. Maybe this was because I don't read very many spy novels or maybe it was because John le Carré is just that good.

"And suddenly, with the terrible clarity of a man too long deceived, Leamus understood the whole ghastly trick." [CH 23: Confession]

At the end of chapter 23 Alec Leamus had the ultimate "aha" moment. Sadly, I realized I had not a clue what his revelation was. I was stumped and de More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2008

Pete rated it:

"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" by John le Carre is an entertaining spy story, and I enjoyed every page of it. It is unpredictable, suspenseful, and it feels authentic, particularly when compared with Ian Fleming's James Bond. Le Carre's characters are human, with human flaws, and they don't dispatch their enemies with flippant one-liners. There are a few one-meeeeeellion doahllar moments in this 45 year old book, but the themes hold up well with age. The central theme is the a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Mohammed rated it:

My first John Le Carrè book and i enjoyed every page of it. It was realistic,exciting,gripping.

It managed to pack more plot into it's 212 pages than most longer,padded books in the same genre today.
The best thing about the book was how real the spy world was in the story and how ugly it was just like in the real world and not like most spy books. Alec Leamas was very believable character just like every other character in the book.

The last chapter of the book is p More...

7 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2012

Steve rated it:

Alec Leamas is a world weary secret agent for British counter-intelligence, working out of Berlin. He has been running a network of agents in Berlin for many years, very successfully, but recently things have been going wrong, and when his last agent is shot and killed trying to crossover into the West, he returns to England. His boss, Control, asks him to do one final very important (and very dangerous) assignment, a devious plan designed to result in the death of the powerful head of East Germ More...

0 comments like

Dec 17, 2011

Liz rated it:

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold..

A spy novel it was, or tried to be. To me, it was the end of a spy novel where every plot is falling apart, truth is getting closer to being revealed and everyone is worn out or killed.

Alec Leamas, is a burnt out spy in West Berlin during the Cold War who gets the double punishment for a job gone wrong. The End.

To my likeness of the book, I was unimpressed. It seemed so rushed and barely woven together I felt like I didn't kno More...

0 comments like

Nov 16, 2011

Erik rated it:

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is basically a book in which two men sit in a room and talk with each other. Really, that's it. And while John le Carre's good at writing dialogue, he's not -that- good.

Don't get me wrong; the book is tightly written, a thriller, a mystery, a page-turner. It's written with authority. It had a definite Cold War aura to it. But it was just... hollow?

Perhaps my response to the book suffers since I read it immediately after finishing The Boo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 06, 2011

Paul rated it:

In many ways, this book is a time capsule about how both sides of the cold war truly viewed each other. It is also the tragic story of how in the cold war, one had to choose sides, if not sides were chosen for you. The 'hero' of this tale is Alex Leamus a cold war spy who wants to trap his nemesis, the British secret service says they want to help, and you think this is one of those stories where you know what's going to happen next, and suprise, things aren't what they seem. And for once, th More...

1 comment like

Nov 05, 2011

Harmonybites rated it:

The book gets off to a gripping and suspenseful start. At the height of the Cold War around 1962, veteran British operative Alec Leamas waits for one of his agents to cross the East German border. He can only watch as the man is gunned down before his eyes within feet of making it across. With that death, the East Germans have succeeded in unraveling his entire network.

Brought back to England, Leamas is convinced to do one more job. He's dangled as bait, presented as apparently broken More...

0 comments like

Oct 22, 2011

Stephen rated it:

Good, gritty, resolutely unglamorous espionage story. Anyone who enjoyed the British series Callan would love this. It was my first Le Carré - I'd be happy to read more in a similar vein.

Interesting how totally the political and cultural landscape has changed in the 50 years since this was written. This world is still recognisable to me, but to anyone a bit younger it would probably would seem as alien as the Victorian era. The detailed depictions of spy rings, and how they do their More...

10 comments like

Sep 19, 2011

Julianna rated it:

Okay, first let me say that every time someone calls the plot of this book "simple" I feel like a bigger idiot than I did while reading it. I guess the biggest problem was that with minimal backstory for each character, I found it difficult to keep everyone straight. Basically, other than Leamas, we get a name and a physical description of each character and that is often it. To be fair, however, Le Carre is good at giving little anecdotes from time to time for color, but it's often no More...

0 comments like

Sep 15, 2011

Jordan rated it:

'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is the dividing point where le Carre crossed from being an above average thriller author to the master of spy fiction the Smiley series eventually cemented him as. The third book in the seven-part 'Smiley series,' this is the first story to move away from le Carre's signature character, and into the frigid and anonymous world of espionage. 'Spy Who Came in from the Cold' follows the events of 'Call for the Dead,' now focusing on Station Head Alec Leamas, who i More...

0 comments like

Aug 13, 2011

Andy rated it:

Another genre novel for me. I've read the Bond books when younger to much delight and struggled through the first Bourne book but aside those have not read much in the way of 'spy fiction'. This is portrayed as a 'modern classic' and I completely agree.

The plot seems straightforward as we follow the bitter, angry, and tired Alex Leamas on one last mission for his country before he's brought in 'from the cold'. Given that we know he's setting his old enemy up it seems obvious how it' More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Paul rated it:

The Spy who Came in from the Cold was John le Carré’s 'break-through' novel, the book that brought him international acclaim, and which Graham Greene hailed as the best spy novel he had ever read. But is it a book that has stood the test of time? For this reader the answer is a definite yes (despite some annoying typos in this edition).

Set in the early 1960s, soon after the Berlin Wall began to go up, The Spy who Came in from the Cold is the story of Alec Leamas, a British agent who is More...

0 comments like

Jul 25, 2011

James rated it:

Welcome to the Cold War. The old edition of this book I checked out of the library possessed a thin gray jacket with a looming Brandenburg Gate on the front cover, an intentionally ugly book that tells you all you need to know about the setting and the atmosphere. Berlin, Iron Curtain, moral murk in high dudgeon.

The third book in what started as a series of spy stories as different from Ian Fleming's world as could be, John le Carre's novel explored professional failures and impossib More...

0 comments like

Jun 29, 2011

J rated it:

I stayed up until 1:30am to finish this book, which is very unusual for me. Once I got to the last 50 pages through, it was impossible to put down. All the characters were well defined by that point and there were constant collisions of action. To say it was riveting is an understatement.

Definitely well written, but after I finished it I just felt numb. I didn't want to think about the all the ramifications of the storyline. Even the love story did not cheer me. I'm sure that was the a More...

0 comments like

Jun 24, 2011

Matt rated it:

I finished this book on my trip to Peru amongst a collection of a bunch that I brought with me. I read it in one sitting on the boat from Mazan to Santa Clotilde. It gripped me the whole time and, like I would assume most reviews out there, felt like watching a good made-for-TV spy movie. It wasn't necessarily epic. I caught the twist at the end a little later than I probably should have, but amidst a bunch of good storytelling there were a few lines of choice dialog. This is my first GoodReads More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

A heaping dose of bleak cynicism, which stands in stark contrast to the kind of spy stories that are consumed en masse today. There's not much trace of the glamorous James Bond here, nor the idealistic kind of truth, justice and the American Way spy work of a Tom Clancy novel. Tightly packed plot that keeps you guessing, and plenty of intrigue without sensational violence, explosions or car chases.

One can't help but read this and wonder how much the world of espionage has changed in More...

0 comments like

Jan 10, 2011

Phillippa rated it:

I had never read a John Le Carre novel before and felt ashamed, so i sort out his most famous novel with which to begin my Le Carre journey. I began the book with a certain amount of trepidation because i was worried i wouldn't like it, and that after all the hype I would be left disappointed. This was not the case - it quickly drew me in and did what all the best books do (unfortunately i don't find it often enough) which was to actually transport me into the narrative to the point that the roo More...

0 comments like

Jul 15, 2010

March rated it:

I wanted to clear my mind a bit from all the academic and work-related reading I've been doing lately. I wanted something to keep me excited, something that would hold my now super short attention span for longer than quarter of an hour before I fall asleep in the evening. What more appropriate for this purpose than a mystery thriller. And The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is among the best ever written, according to the first google hit you get when you search for "the best mystery novels More...

0 comments like

Jun 23, 2010

Madeline rated it:

This is on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, which means we are to respect it as a Very Important Book and give it a good rating. If I'm being honest, I guess it deserves this ranking. The characters are compelling, the dialogue is good, there are no superfluous scenes, and the whole thing has a creepy and secretive atmosphere that's very compelling.

But I cannot in good conscience give this more than two stars, for the simple reason that, for the majority of the b More...

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2010

Leah rated it:

Are you ever reading a book or watching a movie or listening to a song where something about it is so perfect that you get the insane idea in your head that you could do it too? You could be genius like that person who wrote that or directed that or scored that and you could match them? I do. I get inspired sometimes when that perfect song comes on at just the right spot of the movie and I think I want to be that (a music supervisor). I think, when I read a book so well-written that the sce More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2010

Vivek rated it:

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, by John le Carre is about a British Intelligence officer, Alec Leamas, who has not been doing very well. Karl Riemeck, his last double agent, has been discovered and killed by a man named Mundt. Alec must go back to London and tell the chief, Control, what has happened. Control decides to send Alec on one last mission. Since a one of Mundt’s own agents, Fiedler, suspect him of being a British double agent, Control tells Alec to try to convince all of them that More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2009

Greg rated it:

I was trying to figure out how to share my recent woes with my goodread's friends in a review and I was getting nothing. All of my recent books have either taken place in Glasgow, or been World War 2 / Early Cold War era books, and well none of them really capture the angst of being repeatedly cut off from the internet. What's more important than my own discomfort compared to anything else, especially at Christmas?

So anyway, while I was standing on a pay phone on 39th Ave trying to More...

6 comments like (11 people liked it)