The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John le Carre)

If you do an Internet search for best spy novels of all time, this selection is at or near the top of most lists. And with good reason- it was an excellent read.

The setting is the Cold War, early 1960s. It centers on a British agent sent to do one more job for his country. I can't reveal more without potentially spoiling things, so I'll leave it at that.

Like most good thrillers, there are a number of plot twists and layers to the story that make it so enjoyable. This is le Carre's third novel, and the one that launched his career. He wrote it in just 5-6 weeks, in the odd moments of the day, over lunch breaks, on the car ferry crossing the Rhine (he worked in Germany), etc. That said, you can tell, in very minor ways, that it is the work of someone still developing as a writer. There are just a few places where I thought a paragraph or two more would have improved things a shade. It's still an amazing novel, well worth the read- just a few minor edits short of an A+.

Rating: A