Book Review: The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

I first encountered master spy novelist John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in high school. My librarian recommended it to me, but like a fool I never read it, but knew it’s considered a masterpiece. Quite rightly.

The novel begins tense, with an agent fleeing the border crossing at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. He’s gunned down, and his handler, Alec Leamas, falls into a master plan to recover the loss.

Leamas begins a subtle gambit, masterminded by Control, his boss at MI6. This ruse sends him on a tailspin of alcoholism — less a ruse than Leamas would like to admit — unemployment and bitterness. He discovers a new love, gets recruited by the East Germans to turn against the British and Americans, and finds himself interrogated, imprisoned, and then on trial before the East German Praesidium.

Each step, le Carré crafts fascinating spies, a cast of heroes and villains more disheveled than dashing. While some, like Leamas’ naive lover who is central in Control’s plan, border on the caricatured, others are captivating.

The story is brief and constantly tense. For those unfamiliar, le Carré is all tension and inference, not action and adventure. The Cold War seethes here, and the characters become players of a cerebral game, themselves imagining narratives of what their adversaries are plotting. Still, there is action and violence that’s suddenly urgent and vivid and ultimately tragic.

But, above all, I find le Carré an astounding writer of prose. Yes, his characters and his narratives rise above, but his sentences are genius here. It’s a tightly written book of beautiful shadows and gorgeous light amid gray upon gray characters and their ashes, literal and figurative. Le Carré isn’t so much painter as he is photographer.

I can’t yet speak to his other works, many of which are famous — Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Russian House, The Constant Gardener, and many more. I’m only a little disappointed it took me this long to discover his work. It’s extraordinary.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré: ★★★★★

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