Call for the Dead

A civil servant kills himself, and Smiley investigates. He realises that something more is going on here, and the suicide note itself is very suspicious. The investigation draws him into contact with a German spy operation, the dead man's wife, and some of his own ex-agents.

"Call For The Dead," was John Le Carre's first novel, and first George Smiley novel: it was an astonishing debut. In her Foreword to the 1961 reissue, P.D. James wrote,"The novel is a finely wrought and compelling mixture of three types of crime writing:...a thriller, the spy story...and the detective story...." Much shorter than his great works to come,really novella length, the book works ingeniously on all three levels. We are, firstly, kept breathlessly guessing at what will come next. We are then fascinated by the spy craft, a subject Le Carre knows from his years in the intelligence-gathering business. We meet George Smiley, a character who will turn up in Le Carre's later, great spy stories, and also a handful of other characters who will turn up again too. We can, finally, follow the clues of the mystery well enough. The currently desk-bound, formerly assigned in Germany, British spy Smiley is sent to interview a just-promoted Foreign Service employee, Samuel Fennan, after an anonymous letter accuses the man of Communist leanings. The interview goes pleasantly enough, spent in a London park watching the ducks and swans,and Smiley comes as close as he may to reassuring Fennan that his report will clear him. Nevertheless, Fennan apparently tells his wife that the interview was an ordeal, and commits suicide. The Foreign Service Officer supposedly leaves a note that reads, in part, "I cannot spend my remaining years under a cloud of disloyalty and suspicion. I realize that my career is ruined, that I am the victim of paid informers." Yet, many features of the crime scene, including an 8:30 wakeup call the dead man had requested for the next morning, do not ring right to Smiley: it calls out for further investigation. This investigation will, as is frequently the case, prove dangerous to many people, including Smiley, and will result in Smiley's once again crossing paths, and swords, with an extraordinary one-time German protege of his. The book is beautifully written, long on wit, though short on the midnight mandarin meetings that will become a mainstay of Le Carre's later works. Characters are fully rounded, and treated with a compassion that will not always survive to his later books. Le Carre also here begins by flashing us his ability to open a book with a bang: a first chapter entitled "A Brief History of George Smiley" is enough to leave us hungry for more.

Recently I decided to buy nice new hardback copies of all of my favorite author, John LeCarre's books. When I did a quick search, I discovered that I not only didn't own his first novel, Call for the Dead, I had never read it. So, I bought it and what a pleasure it was to read when it arrived. Clearly, John LeCarre was a great genious from the very beginning. It introduces the reader to his greatest character, George Smiley, and fills in a lot of unknowns about his beginnings, his marriage to Ann and his odd and quiet character. Its an espionage novel which is almost a who-done-it, and it works beautifully on both levels. This recent publication of the book contains a new forward by P.D. James and a terrific forward by the author himself discussing how he came to be a writer. It is a very satisfying read, and, as always with LeCarre, I was sorry when I was finished reading. I think all of you will be, too. Penny Blake, Chicago

This is John Le Carre's first book, originally published in 1961, and inevitably most of us come to it with a pre-existing sense of the author's importance: Le Carre is one of the finest living writers in the English language. However, if we read it without reference to his later works, "Call for the Dead" is well written and skillfully plotted. The plot is simple, more elegant perhaps than sparse. The characters are also presented in a very clean and careful manner; indeed the hallmark of this short book is its sparse and sharp line. It is an enjoyable read; a well crafted and skillfully told story. But, of course, it is impossible to disentangle "Call for the Dead" from history and the subsequent literary corpus of this spectacular writer. For those of us acquainted with these later books, "Call for the Dead" is of great interest because right from the beginning we see the ill-at-ease George Smiley absent mindedly polishing his glasses on the lining of his tie. We realize that we are going to know this shy and awkward spymaster, to become intimately involved in his live and his future. It is a strange experience, all the stranger when we realize that our "knowledge" of George Smiley has come only from the creative genius of Le Carre. What a remarkable creation! It has been suggested that this book might be a suitable first read for someone new to Le Carre. I cannot agree. In itself, this short and well-balanced story will probably NOT make you want to read more Le Carre. However, if you already are acquainted with Le Carre's work, this little book has all of poignancy of a newly discovered and unread journal of a dear friend. You want to read it to see find out more about this person that you have known for so long. "Call for the Dead" is a pleasant and easy read but, for me at least, it is more significant for casting light on so much that I have subsequently read of Le Carre. I hope that you find this little book as pleasurable as I did, and I suggest that if you are new to Le Carre you try some of his later works ("Smiley's People" of "Honourable Schoolboy") first. David S-G

Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley. She deemed him ordinary. Two years later she left him. Smiley traveled without labels. In 1928 he was offered a position in the secret service. Natural pleasure started to die in him. In 1937, in Germany, when he had been at a provincial German university, he saw books being burned and he disliked this. In 1939 he began four years of traveling between Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. In 1943 he was recalled to England. After the war the inspired amateurism of a clutch of ill-paid men ceased. Smiley entered middle age without ever having been young. A man named Fennan kills himself. Smiley had interviewed him. For background for his department he goes to see the man's wife, Elsa. Smiley comes to believe the death is murder. His superior is not happy to receive his opinion of the matter. Making no headway, Smiley decides to resign. He goes to see a police officer involved in the investigation of Fennan's death. In a junkyard Smiley is knocked unconscious. Three weeks later, the hospital allows the policeman, Mendel, to see him. The dead man, Fennan, had found intellectual purity in Marxism. Could it be that the murder of Fennan and the attempted murder of Smiley were related? Perhaps the murderer of Fennan was anxious that he not talk to a security officer. A connection between the East Germans and Fennan is surmised. Next the informant at the junkyard, Scarr, comes up dead. It is established that Fennan had been an East German spy in order to help the cause, but he was clumsy. Fennan was killed under the false belief that he had betrayed his side. This book, one of the first two published by this author, is absolutely brilliant. One sees that right from the start the webs untangled by George Smiley are of great importance and interest.