Call for the Dead
by John le Carre
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Book Summary Information
Author: John le CarreEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-02-01
ISBN: 0743431677
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of Call for the Dead
Book Review: Le Carre's Astonishing Debut
Summary: 5 Stars
"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.
Summary of Call for the Dead
John le Carré classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him -- and his hero, British Secret Service Agent George Smiley, who is introduced in this, his first novel -- unprecedented worldwide acclaim.
George smiley had liked Samuel Fennan, and now Fennan was dead from an apparent suicide. But why? Fennan, a Foreign Office man, had been under investigation for alleged Communist Party activities, but Smiley had made it clear that the investigation -- little more than a routine security check -- was over and that the file on Fennan could be closed. The very next day, Fennan was found dead with a note by his body saying his career was finished and he couldn't go on. Smiley was puzzled...
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