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Call for the Dead  By  cover art

Call for the Dead

By: John le Carré
Narrated by: Michael Jayston
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Publisher's summary

An unabridged reading by Michael Jayston of John le Carré’s first novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley.

Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged, and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin’.

This novel, set in London in the late 1950s, finds Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself soon after making a cup of cocoa and asking the exchange to telephone him in the morning, Smiley decides to investigate – only to uncover a murderous conspiracy with its roots in his own secret wartime past.

©1962 David Cornwell (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.

What listeners say about Call for the Dead

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Great introduction

Great introduction to Smily and the other characters. Good to listen to this story before the the subsequent ones. So beautifully narrated who gives as much attention to detail as the author himself.

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"You must act for thought to be efficient."

In which the reader is introduced to Smiley...
Beautifully written, and equally well performed by Michael Jayston, this is a mystery spy story, slow moving but filled with tension and cold emotion. Excellent.

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Well read, good book

Great book and well read. Michael Jayston is a great reader and lends himself to the characters.
Book is interesting and often times dramatic.

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