Call for the Dead (34)

Call for the Dead
John leCarre'

This is leCarre's first book, written in 1961 which introduces us to George Smiley. He interviews a person reported as being communist. Routine interview... nothing really there, but everything has to be followed up on. The next day the man is dead from an apparent sucide.. While speaking with the widow the dead man receives a wake up call. While everybody wants to put this one away.. Smiley has doubts about it.. and keeps poking into it.

I really enjoyed this book.. and am almost through my next LeCarre book. I was worried after reading A Small Town In Germany.. than maybe I was mistaken about leCarre.. this is not the case. I read an article about leCarre, who actually was a British intellegence officer.. that when he started writing Ian Flemming and 007 were very popular.. yet Bond is not what an intellegence officer should be.. so he created Smiley to show what intellegence work is really like.. always to blend in and not be noticed.. not to be flashy and stand out. So in many ways Smiley is the antithesis of James Bond.