Showing results by author "John le Carré" in All Categories

The Constant Gardener (Abridged): The beautiful Tessa Quayle is murdered near Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. And her putative African lover and travelling companion has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa’s husband, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. On his way he meets terror, violence and conspiracy, but his greatest discovery is the woman he barely had time to love.

You're not to disturb, annoy or offend. They're walking on a knife edge out there, anything could tilt the balance.' Missing: one junior diplomat and 43 of the British Embassy's most confidential files. The timing is alarmingly significant: with neo-Nazi riots and radical student demonstrations, the threat to Germany's security is all too apparent. Britain's own Alan Turner is sent in, with instructions to tread carefully at all costs. But will he find the missing man and the files before the political situation erupts?

John le Carré was a best-selling author whose books include and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. On this recording we hear - in his own words - about being brought up by his grandparents and feeling deserted by his mother and father. He talks about being creative as a means of escapism, by telling stories about his absent parents, as well as hating public school where he suffered severe beatings. 

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of John le Carré's first novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley. This dramatisation, 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, Smiley decides to investigate.

A Murder of Quality, set in the early 1960s, sees George Smiley investigating a murder in a public school. When the wife of one of the masters is found bludgeoned to death, Smiley, out of loyalty to an old friend, agrees to look into the case. But his investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night?

Britain is in the depths of recession. A left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Seemingly by chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis.

In this enthralling and thought-provoking novel of Middle Eastern intrigue, Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young actress, is lured into 'the theatre of the real' by an Israeli intelligence officer. Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist.

À quarante-sept ans, Nat, vétéran des services de renseignement britanniques, est de retour à Londres auprès de Prue, son épouse et alliée inconditionnelle. Il pressent que ses jours comme agent de terrain sont comptés. Mais avec la menace grandissante venue de Moscou, le Service lui offre une dernière mission : diriger le Refuge.

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumour in Whitehall – unconfirmed and a little scandalous – that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found.

When word reaches 'The Department' - an ailing section of British intelligence - that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to show Control and Smiley, their rivals over at the Circus, that The Department still has value. Former spy Fred Leiser is lured back from retirement to investigate, and manages to cross the border into East Germany in a dangerous night-time operation.

"It’s an emergency, George. You remember Vladimir? George, are you awake? You remember the old General?" The phone call that dragged George Smiley, acting Chief of the Circus, from his bed was a plea to return to active service. But only to bury the case, not to solve it...

The beautiful Tessa Quayle is murdered near Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. And her putative African lover and travelling companion has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa’s husband, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. On his way he meets terror, violence and conspiracy, but his greatest discovery is the woman he barely had time to love.

2008, Gibraltar : commanditée par les Affaires étrangères britanniques et une société militaire privée américaine, une opération anti-terroriste vise un acheteur d'armes djihadiste. Kit Probyn, diplomate naïf, sera le "téléphone rouge" du ministre, alors que Toby Bell, son secrétaire particulier est étonnamment tenu à l'écart. 2011, Toby est convoqué par un Probyn à la retraite, à deux doigts de dévoiler les dessous de l'affaire, totalement véreuse. Choisira-t-il sa conscience contre sa loyauté envers l'État ?

Einer der fünf Top-Leute des britschen Geheimdienstes muss ein Maulwurf sein, ein Top-Agent des KGB....

In the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington, an unholy alliance operates between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade. Jonathan Pine is ready to stand up and be counted in the fight against this ultimate heart of darkness. His mission takes him from the cliffs of west Cornwall, via Northern Quebec and the Caribbean, to the jungles of post-Noriega Panama. His quarry is the worst man in the world.

The first of his peerless novels of Cold War espionage and international intrigue, Call for the Dead is also the debut of John le Carré's masterful creation George Smiley. George Smiley had liked the man, and now the man was dead. Suicide. But why? An anonymous letter had alleged that Foreign Office man Samuel Fennan had been a member of the Communist Party as a student before the war. Nothing very unusual for his generation.

Set against the threat of a German-Soviet alliance, John le Carré's A Small Town in Germany is a superb chronicle of Cold War paranoia and political compromise. The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal.

1961. L'espion britannique Alec Leamas et son amie Liz Gold trouvent la mort au pied du mur de Berlin. 2017. Peter Guillam, fidèle collègue et disciple de George Smiley dans les services de renseignement autrefois surnommés "le Cirque", est tiré de sa retraite en Bretagne par une lettre de son ancien employeur, qui le convoque à Londres. Pourquoi ? Ses activités d'agent secret pendant la guerre froide le rattrapent. Des opérations qui firent la gloire du Londres secret vont être minutieusement décortiquées par une nouvelle génération qui n'a que faire des luttes menées jadis par les Occidentaux contre le bloc communiste.

Magnus Pym, ranking diplomat, has vanished, believed defected. The chase is on: for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a secret agent. Pym’s life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. Dominated by a father who is also a confidence trickster on an epic scale, Pym has, from the age of 17, been controlled by two mentors. It is these two, racing each other and time itself, who are orchestrating the search to find the perfect spy....

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of John le Carré’s last Smiley novel.George 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'.