John le Carré
(1931-2020)

Before 1963, Ian Fleming’s character, James Bond, the suave, playboy British spy, was the model for spy novels.

John le Carré, born David John Moore Cornwall in 1931, changed that. In 1963, he published “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” That bestseller immediately changed the course of spy novels from gallivanting jet-setter spies to agents on both sides of the Iron Curtain who faced moral dilemmas. His most enduring character, George Smiley, was a pudgy, unhappy agent – the antithesis of Bond.

Le Carré’s service as a British agent early in his life lent an unmatched reality to his novels.

Le Carré died Dec. 12 from pneumonia. He was 89.

But his writing in more than two dozen novels spanning more than a half-century of storytelling intrigue lives on. See our catalog to reserve a le Carré book today.