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

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 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.

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.

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?

"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...

Tom Baker stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of John le Carré’s powerful thriller. In the third year of perestroika, London publisher Barley Blair is sent a manuscript from Moscow. Exposing Russian nuclear threats as a sham, the information - if it’s genuine - could shatter East-West relations. Jazz-loving, hard-drinking Blair is hardly the spymasters’ idea of the perfect agent, yet they are forced to send him to Moscow to make contact.

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?

Featuring George Smiley, this New York Times best seller is the first instalment in John le Carré’s acclaimed Karla trilogy. The man he knew as 'Control' is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement - especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence.

As an interpreter of African languages, Bruno Salvador is much in demand. He makes it a principle to remain neutral - no matter what he hears. But when he is summoned on a secret job for British Intelligence, he is told he will have to get his hands dirty. His mission is to help bring democracy to the Congo - democracy that will be delivered at the end of a gun barrel.

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.

An illegal Muslim immigrant arrives in Hamburg with a traumatic past and the key to a fortune held in a private bank. He says his name is Issa. To the idealistic young human rights lawyer Annabel, determined to save him from deportation, he is a worthy cause. To the intelligence services of Britain, Germany and America, however, he is a potential jihadist - and a pawn between them as they seek to make a kill in the war on terror.

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.

When a Russian émigré is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, Smiley is called out of retirement to exorcise some Cold War ghosts from his clandestine past. What follows is Smiley the human being at his most vulnerable and Smiley the case officer at his most brilliant; and it takes to a thrilling conclusion his career-long, serpentine battle with the enigmatic and ruthless Russian spymaster Karla.

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....

Absolute Friends is a superbly paced novel spanning 56 years, a theatrical masterstroke of tragi-comic writing and a savage fable of our times, almost of our hours. The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, British soldier’s son born 1947 in a new independent Pakistan, and Sasha, refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife, who have sought sanctuary in the West.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Julian a volontairement troqué son job lucratif à la City contre une librairie dans une petite station balnéaire de la côte est anglaise. Mais à peine est-il installé qu'un visiteur surgi de nulle part vient bouleverser sa nouvelle vie : Edward, immigré polonais habitant la vaste demeure en bordure de la ville, semble en savoir beaucoup sur sa famille, et porter trop d'intérêt à la bonne marche de son entreprise.