Addictive Books

Sam McCready serves Britain as Chief of Deception & Disinformationfor the British Secret Intelligence Service. He's competent, dedicated, in his prime. Why then this push to get him out? The options are painful -- early retirement or an administrative backwater. Who wants him out, and why? And what happens if he refuses to go quietly? It's a wild card, confrontational, risky.

After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds 'Circus' head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation. But on the very day that Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man.

In Le Carré's first masterpiece Alec Leamas, a British agent in early Cold War Berlin, is responsible for keeping the double agents under his care undercover and alive. When the East Germans start killing them, Leamas is sent deep into Communist territory to find out why. "The finest spy story ever written" (Graham Green).