THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’ is a global bestseller and a classic Le Carré espionage novel, written in 1962. This book, his third, firmly established Le Carré and redefined the ‘spy’, not so much as a glamorous action man but rather an everyman troubled by his moral obligations and the bureaucracy of the spyworld post WW2. We might concur that Le Carré was inspired by his work as a secret agent at MI5 and MI6. The recently successful theatre adaptation has given us good reason to return to the novel for book club.

The story begins in Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, the famous border between East and West Germany. Alec Leamas is a double agent working for the British secret service. Having spent some time in the ‘cold’ Leamas is waiting at the border for an East German bureaucrat who is also serving as a double agent for the British. However at the border there is a shooting, leaving unfinished business. Leamas returns to London burn’t out by his experiences in Berlin, but left with a nagging concern about what he has left behind.

Summoned back to his spy headquarters, Leamas is given one final mission before retiring; to kill Mundt, a former Nazi and cold blooded killer back in Berlin. Leamas reluctantly meets up with Smiley, (a famous Le Carré character) to agree the plan. This included taking on a new double identity in London which forces him to be demoted at work and take on a menial position in a library. In this job, Leamas befriends Liz Gold a young Jewish woman who has secretly joined the Communist party. They have an affair and Liz falls in love with Leamas. This complicates his work and mission to return to Berlin. However, he is committed to following through with his assignment. Leamas spends time in prison, taking on the persona of a vagrant - all enabling him to be recruited by the East German spy network as a defector, taking him back into the Cold.

The story asks the reader to re-imagine the mindset of a spy. Can a spy fall in love? And can anyone in this environment be trusted, especially those working for the secret service? It also made us consider what qualities make a successful spy and what lengths of deceit are a prerequisite to espionage - in order to ensure a successful mission. Whilst ‘spying’ today is aided thanks to AI and sophisticated surveillance tools, we know that human intelligence is essential to understanding the psyche of the enemy at home or abroad, whether we are at war or not.

It is a testament to the author that this gritty Cold War drama continues to capture our imaginations as a book, a screen adaptation (most famously starring Richard Burton) and more recently as a successful play. All good reasons to revisit this novel in your book club.