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Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel
Unavailable
Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel
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Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel
Audiobook4 hours

Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel

Written by John le Carré

Narrated by Michael Jayston

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Go back to Whitehall and look for more spies on your drawing boards.

George Smiley is no one's idea of a spy -- which is perhaps why he's such a natural. But Smiley apparently made a mistake. After a routine security interview, he concluded that the affable Samuel Fennan had nothing to hide. Why, then, did the man from the Foreign Office shoot himself in the head only hours later? Or did he?

The heart-stopping tale of intrigue that launched both novelist and spy, Call for the Dead is an essential introduction to le Carré's chillingly amoral universe.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 27, 2012
ISBN9781101575741
Unavailable
Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel
Author

John le Carré

John le Carré was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy; and Smiley’s People. His novels include The Constant Gardner, The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Tailor of Panama, and Single & Single. He lives in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

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Reviews for Call for the Dead

Rating: 3.7200001194838705 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    2.25 starsI can't really do a summary for this book, as I missed most of it. The one part that I was kind of interested in was that a man (Fennan) had supposedly killed himself, and George Smiley was asked to investigate. He seemed to think Fennan had been murdered. I listened to the audio, and even backed up to re-listen to the first quarter of the book to try to catch what I'd missed, but it didn't help. It just did not in the least hold my interest or attention. Needless to say, I didn't like the book, beyond the bits about Fennan, which is what I gave the 1/4 star for. I'm glad the book was short.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good fun. More of a detective story than a spy novel per se, but the characters are wonderful . Great insight into how Smiley became Smiley. The early parts of the book are written so smoothly the sentences just reel off.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The first novel by John LeCarré and it is a wonderful book.I read a spanish version with a horrible prologue by Carlos Pujol, the book is wonderful as all of Mr. LeCarré ´s work. Very catchy and enjoyable if your preference is mistery and spies.It´s a must if you like the genre.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had been meaning to read John le Carre for quite some time, and decided that my week on vacation was the perfect place to start. This is the first book in the George Smiley series that many people I follow on these sites rave about. I enjoyed this first novel and its simplicity. It basically follows how the spy craft game works in 1950s England while working through a suicide case. There is very little action so to speak, and the enjoyment is reading about how they came to resolve the case. It was a very quick read, and I will continue on to the next one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I expected more from this book, and was very disappointed. For a spy thriller, the action is very slim. The main character, George Smiley, is a pudgy, nerdish man. The book centers on Smiley's thought processes. And George is tenacious as a dog with a bone when he senses foul play. The case involves the suicide of another agent who George had just interviewed. George goes to see the widow and quickly senses that she is lying to him. In the course of events, George is nearly beaten to death, and receives a cryptic postcard from his ex-wife. Le Carre develops his characters, but the action is lame.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    'Call for the Dead' was an auspicious beginning for a young Brit spy with the pseudonym of John LeCarre. It's not long, it doesn't move very quickly, and there's not a lot of action, but it's a great start for a writer who's still cranking out quality thrillers. A side benefit of 'Call for the Dead' is that it's the introduction of a character, George Smiley, who has populated some of the best spy fiction ever written.The plot is similar to one or more you've encountered if you're a mystery fan. A man commits suicide, but did he really, or was he murdered? Numerous complications are present: he's employed by the secret service, he'd just been interviewed by Smiley, his wife's behavior and answers during the investigation were strange, the man left several indications that he fully expected to be around the next day, and, most mysteriously, a 'wake up' call intended for him is picked up by Smiley while at the deceased's residence after the man has obviously already died. Smiley puts on his thinking cap and, despite almost getting beat to death at one point by an East German spy who was wreaking havoc in the area, solves the mystery. It's really a fine example of how a crime can be solved simply by looking at facts .'Call for the Dead' is LeCarre's first book, but the writing and approach both show a high level of maturity. His development of the character of George Smiley was exemplary, but my only quibble is that we didn't learn much about the supporting cast. Other than that, it's a fine short read that kicks off the career of my favorite writer in my favorite genre.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    John Le Carre's deftly drawn characters and well informed books on the world of espionage should need no introduction. Yet despite watching the two BBC miniseries based on the George Smiley character I hadn't read any until I listened to this, the first book in the eight featuring George. Smiley is a fascinating character, quite opaque, quiet and undemonstrative. He is the polar opposite of James Bond yet is a superb protagonist. Le Carre's first book is well plotted and paced, gently ambling towards a conclusion. I did anticipate a couple of plot points but it was still a pleasure to seem them play out.
    The audio book is excellently narrated with the characters easily distinguished and full of drama.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I had the good fortune to hear John Le Carre speak at an awards ceremony I attended earlier this week at the German Embassy. He spoke well about the importance of learning foreign languages, international co-operation and friendship and the catastrophic foolishness of Brexit. In consequence, I decided to try another of his novels, this is his first one, featuring George Smiley, but clearly not as well known as some of his later ones that have been made into film or other adaptations. While Call for the Dead contained the usual moral dilemmas of the spy, in this case a German Jew who had lived in Britain before the war, was persecuted by the Nazis, then spied for East Germany, I found it difficult to care for any of the characters. Oddly perhaps, I think I find novels written in (in this case) 1961 sometimes more dated and harder to get into than novels written much earlier. I recognise he is a great author, though. 3/5
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Never read Le Carre. Thought I'd start with the first. The problem with that is, the writer's skill is not up to expectations. A fine little story, but not more than that.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I hadn't read le Carre before, but I picked this book up awhile ago so figured I should. The first chapter or two were horrendous to me, but I found myself enjoying the story as it went on. The unraveling of the mystery wasn't perfect since all the pieces weren't in front of the reader early — the best mysteries are where all the clues are there if you knew to look — but there was still enough to make it fairly smart.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first George Smiley novel. He appears fully formed, already middle aged with her career seeminly largely behind him. I enjoyed revisiting with him.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    George Smiley tracks down the killer of an agent of the service.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Early Smiley, I've read several of the later books, and don't remember them with the circles and arrows pointing to the inconsistent bits of evidence, but it was long ago if only a few miles away. It was interesting being introduced to George Smiley and catch a first whiff of Ann.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've read just about everything by le Carré, and now this. A nice little touch of the earliest Mr Smiley and early, early le Carré. Delightful in it's youthfulness in all aspects.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Call for the DeadLe Carré’s first novel and the first with George Smiley. Smiley is fatter and duller than the Alec Guiness version of Smiley and of the Tinker Tailer version of Smiley. The writing is not as polished as it will become and the plot is not as elegant as they will become.It is an enjoyable read, particularly for those who are fans of Le Carré and Smiley.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Masterful thriller story-telling by the master of the British Spy story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first le Carré I have read. An excellent and thoroughly British spy mystery.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This very short book introduces George Smiley, the British intelligence officer who will lead several of John le Carre's spy novels. Smiley is already world weary but driven by a sense of moral duty. A rather complicated plot in so few words is a bit difficult to follow, especially on audiobook (though Ralph Cosham's narration is splendid) so the penultimate chapter which includes Smiley's final report on the events is a relief. Secondary characters add a lot of flavor and temper Smiley's somewhat sullen personality with warmth and humor.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    George Smiley has a run-of-the-mill administrative job in Britain's secret service. He interviews a man who has come under suspicion for being a communist sympathizer, and finds the man to be totally innocent. The next day, the man is dead - an apparent suicide - and Smiley investigates his suspicious death.This is a good spy thriller, but there's nothing tremendously profound or innovative in it, and le Carre hasn't yet achieved the skill as a writer that he has in later books like The Constant Gardener. An entertaining read - good mind candy.I listened to the audiobook, and enjoyed the narrator.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As I begin the last quarter of a year in which I have spent a lot of time slogging through a lot of big, bloated genre novels and their big, bloated sequels, there is something tonic and refreshing about a short, tightly plotted mid-20th century number like this one that very likely renders my enjoyment entirely out of proportion to the actual book's quality.

    But perhaps not.

    George Smiley has become an iconic character, at least in my little corner of the world, even without my ever having encountered him directly and consciously before now.* Tom Ripley was much the same for me, until my fangirl passion for Wim Wenders and Bruno Ganz led me to discover The American Friend, which featured Dennis Hopper as Ripley, a Ripley to which no other performance shall ever measure up, and I proceeded to gobble up all of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels in quick succession, to rush to acquire them in collectible hardcover, the better to gloat over them in my barrister bookcase...

    I suspect I'll be doing the same with John le Carre, too.

    Call for the Dead spends a lot of its time sort of slyly masquerading as a cozy mystery, with Smiley, ordinarily an operative for the British Secret Service in a very low key sort of way, filling the amateur detective role. A Foreign Office employee whom Smiley interviewed pro forma after an anonymous letter had identified the man as a former Communist has overreacted to said interview and killed himself in a fit of despair -- or has he? As the mystery unravels and a trail of bodies is found, a dashing and charismatic frenemy from Smiley's past surfaces. Watching Smiley sort all of this out in his methodical, thoughtful, occultly brilliant way is a genuine pleasure; so is watching his friends, one in the police and one fellow spy.

    But it is the grieving widow who steals the show, as such. Elsa Feenan, Holocaust survivor, pragmatist, broken yet still strong, is a riveting figure from her first scene with Smiley, in which she effortlessly teases out his own anxieties about what he does and how he does it:

    "It's like the State and the People. The state is a dream too, a symbol of nothing at all, an emptiness, a mind without a body, a game played with clouds in the sky. But States make war, don't they, and imprison people. To dream in doctrines -- how tidy! My husband and I have both been tidied now, haven't we?"

    This coming just pages after a summary of Smiley's career -- which started out in the days when the spy trade barely was one, was just a loose affiliation of smart and careful people who had the wisdom to see that action on the front of a war cannot be the only action, and continued, perhaps a bit uncomfortably, into the age of professionalization and bureaucracy -- is devastating. And that scene is hardly her only bravura performance. I find myself wishing le Carre had written a series of Elsa Feenan novels in addition to, if not instead of, the Smiley ones.

    But that's how good chronicles should go, isn't it? We'd tire quickly of a series in which Our Hero/point of view character is relentlessly and only what our attention is drawn to; he or she must have foes and foils, must encounter other equally interesting (if not more interesting) characters in his adventures. And by this reckoning, these Smiley novels are quickly going to become compulsive reading favorites right up there with Ripley novels, and Sharpe novels, and Aubrey/Maturin novels, and Miriam Black novels.

    Hooray!

    *I saw snatches of some film adaptations of Smiley novels when I was still a kid at home with my parents, but only sort of paid attention to them. Oh look, Obi-Wan is playing some sort of spy chap. Yawn. Small smile for Mom, who is enjoying the film, back to the pages of whatever Michael Moorcock or Jack Chalker or Piers Anthony mega-series had my real attention at the time. Ah, teenagers.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The to keep in mind about Call for the Dead is that it's le Carré's debut novel. The writing is a bit shocking if you, like me, read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy first. Also, it was published in 1961. If you remember those facts and enjoy British spy stories other than James Bond, you'll like this! George Smiley is about as far from James Bond and Jack Ryan as you can get without being the chick who delivers the coffee. He's also smarter than both of them put together. As an introduction to him, this book is fantastic. The plot is great and the spycraft is fun. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have just finished "Call for the Dead". It is an excellent story. It is the first book written by David Cornwell under the name of John Le Carré. He would have been an intelligence officer himself at the time of writing this novel.The book introduces Mr. Smiley whom some of you will know is the main character in some of Le Carré's later novels, such as "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People". Smiley is portrayed superbly by Alec Guinness in the BBC's dramatizations of "Tinker, Tailor..." and "Smiley's People"."Call for the Dead" brought me back to my boyhood, a time when fog was fog and the word smog hadn't been invented. It was the days of coal fires in every house, Bakelite telephones that rang with the sound of bells, men wore hats all the time, flying with an airline meant you had a physical ticket that you bought in a travel agents, etc... Yes, nostalgic.Le Carré's books are always full of spy-craft and clever observations of human beings, their deceptions and their weaknesses. "Call for the Dead" is no exception.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first le Carré I have read. An excellent and thoroughly British spy mystery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Le Carrè’s first book, and the first in the George Smiley series, which I love. This one is a quick burn and just a tad pedestrian compared to the later installments. Reads like your basic mystery novel, and in that respect very sound and engaging.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Probably the best book ever written by Le Carré
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    George Smiley is woken late one night to learn that Samuel Fennan has just committed suicide. In the note he left behind, Fennan claims that his reputation and career with the Foreign Office have been ruined by Smiley’s recent investigation into his possible Communist sympathies. Yet Smiley had explicitly assured Fennan that the interview was a mere formality and that he would be cleared of all suspicion. This is only the first inconsistency in Fennan’s suicide, and Smiley finds many more as he digs deeper.I really enjoyed this spy novel, although I suppose it is almost more accurate to call it a murder mystery. Still, I appreciated that it showed a world in which spy work is carried out by real humans rather than action figures. As such, this novel is well-plotted rather than action-packed. I was waiting for each twist in the plot, but not necessarily on the edge of my seat. The London le Carré creates is atmospheric and melancholy, disillusioned by the Second World War, as well as by the rearmament of West Germany and developments in East Germany. However, the tone is never bleak, with a subtle humor balancing the gloom. George Smiley seems to find much amusement in observing others, and it is clear that the narrator often finds amusement in observing Smiley. Other strong points: the other well-drawn characters, both major and minor; believable dialogue; a clear, elegant prose style. For being his first novel, there are only a very few points where le Carré’s writing wavers. I will definitely be reading many more of his books and hoping that they only get better from here.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Hmmm. I've heard so much about John le Carré; perhaps this wasn't a good place to start, but I have a thing about being chronological. (I read The Magician's Nephew first, in the Narnia series. Really.) It's a decent spy-thriller/mystery, but it didn't have anything else that got its hooks into me: Smiley was the only potentially interesting character, and he spent a lot of the time sick in bed... The other characters honestly blurred into each other.The mystery itself is straight-forward: I figured it out somewhere before page fifty. Not all the details, perhaps, but the basic outline.Overall, meh.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This first novel by John le Carré, published in 1961, introduces George Smiley, an agent of the British Secret Service (or “Circus”). The book goes into a great deal of detail about Smiley’s background and character, including his unlikely marriage to Lady Ann Sercombe (from whom he was now separated but missed terribly); his recruitment into the service; and how he once killed a former good friend because the Cold War put them on opposite political sides.Smiley’s current activities concern figuring out what was behind the questionable suicide of a Foreign Office civil servant , Samuel Fennan, after a routine security check. Smiley had cleared the man, and now Smiley himself was being blamed for his death. Unraveling what happened reveals a number of complexities, which we know Smiley will eventually figure out. In the course of his investigation, however, Smiley is almost killed. As the story ends, Smiley, uncertain of his future, turns down a promotion.Discussion: While this book doesn’t pack the punch of later books in the series, it is worthwhile reading for fans of George Smiley, in order to learn so much more about how he came to be who and what he is.I listened to an unabridged narration by Michael Jayston, who did an excellent job.(JAB)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's good enough for someone's first novel. but i have to read another novels by le Carré.
    first pages were a little slow, but it got better in middle of the book. worth for reading
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've been collecting le Carré's books to re-read. This one, the first in this series, introduces George Smiley, the self-effacing antithesis of Fleming's James Bond. The story has kept its appeal, and while depicting London in the sixties, has not become dated. Le Carré's custom of summarizing events here and there throughout the story helps the reader follow intricate plots. It's been close to fifty years since my first reading. It was just as enjoyable this time around.