Call for the Dead

Boston: Hill & Company, Publishers, 1961. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Full blue cloth. 166 pp. Light bumps to spine ends. Some light wear to extremities of dust jacket, else fine. George Smiley, the world's most famous secret agent, is about to retire. But suddenly there is the suicide of a Foreign Office clerk - and with it, many questions. Who wrote the letter denouncing him as a security risk? Why did he take his own life just after Smiley himself had assured him of his clearance? Why would he order a wake-up call the morning after his planned suicide? Who was his wife meeting every other Tuesday night at the theater? What terrible secret was she hiding? The case is as baffling as it is intricate. In this, his first novel, as in all those since, John le Carre gives us a compelling and brilliantly crafted thriller of the quality that has elevated the author and the genre to literary prominence. Here is a spy story that delivers all the best - chilling excitement, superb characterization, moral substance, and literary artistry.