Call for the Dead

George Smiley, Book 1

De: John Le Carré

Narrado por: Simon Vance

After an unremarkable interview, Circus agent George Smiley determines the subject of a standard security check—a civil servant in the Foreign Office named Samuel Fennan—poses no threat, nor presents any reason for suspicion of espionage.

Hours later, Samuel Fennan is found dead by suicide. Suddenly finding himself under intense scrutiny, Smiley realizes the Circus intends to blame him for Fennan's death. Rather than remain idle, Smiley begins his own investigation into the nature of the man's demise. What he finds is a tangled web of secrets that connects not only to East German activity in Britain, but also his own past.

The beginning of a body of work that The New York Times calls extraordinary in its breadth, consistency, generosity and wit, John le Carré's 1961 debut introduces one of the most esteemed and iconic spies in the literary canon: George Smiley.

©2012 John Le Carré (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

Excellent story telling

John LeCarre’s novels are excellent spy stories from 1940’s and 1950’s. Reading them today shows the connections in the world between WW II and today.

Great mystery & intrigue

Good stores, good narration. Started slow but kept we listening with its eventual tale of murder, espionage.

An Understated Adventure that keeps you wondering.

I really appreciate Lecarre’s conversational style of weaving a tale. His descriptions are captivating and make me feel like I am right there in the milieu.

Too confusing

Loved the narrator. Story was slow and very complicated in the end. I started over several times. His later books are great. Skip this one.

Good, short, intrigue and mystery from the beginnings of the modern era of espionage.

I decided to start on the writings of one of the creators of the modern spy genre. I was not disappointed. Being old enough to remember the cold war at its height and having learned enough history to understand the context, I found it a strong plot and good storytelling. LeCarre is clearly at the beginning of his career with this book, but already on solid footing.

Good Story, Great narrator

This is a great introduction to George Smiley, which is good that this is the first story in the series.

LeCarre narrated by Simon Vance

Excellent story, excellent narration…I’m done but they want fifteen words…fifteen words…fifteen words.

Short but great intro to Smiley

Excellent story that gives insight into Smiley as a younger man. Well performed by Simon Vance!

later ones much better

kept losing track of the story and characters. not a great start to the series but the series itself is terrific after this one. too much in his head dialog.

Suffers only in comparison to what came after

John LeCarre was so influential in the genre, it is hard to appreciate this early novel appropriately. These were not standard tropes when he created Smiley. Actually nice to read such a short novel which does not overload the story just to hit an arbitrary required word count.