The Spy who came in from the Cold by John Let Carre

jburman

Just finished reading this book what a edge of seat thriller.Book Synopsis

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1963 Cold War spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a British agent, being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold portrays Western espionage methods as morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an international best-seller; it was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by Time magazine.


In 1965 Martin Ritt directed the cinematic adaptation The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, with Richard Burton as Leamas.


Background
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold occurs during the heightened tensions that characterised the late 1950s and early 1960s Cold War, when a Warsaw Pact–NATO war sparked in Germany seemed likely. The story begins and concludes in East Germany, about a year after the completion of the Berlin Wall and around the time when double-agent Heinz Felfe was exposed and tried.


In Call for the Dead, le Carré's debut novel, a key character is Hans-Dieter Mundt, an assassin of the Abteilung ("the Department"), the East German Secret Service, who is working under diplomatic cover in London. When uncovered by agents George Smiley and Peter Guillam of the British intelligence service "the Circus" (which is led by "Control"), he escapes from England to East Germany before Smiley and Guillam can catch him. Two years later, at the time of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Mundt has risen from the field to the upper echelon of the Abteilung, because of his successful counter-intelligence operations against the spy networks of the British secret services. Characters and events from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold are reinvestigated in A Legacy of Spies, le Carré's 2017 novel centering on an aging Guillam.


Plot

The West Berlin office of the Circus is under the command of Station Head Alec Leamas, who served as an SOE operative during World War II and fought in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and Norway.[3] It has just lost its last and best double agent, shot whilst defecting from East Berlin. With no operatives left, Leamas is recalled to London by Control, the Circus chief, who asks Leamas to stay "in the cold" for one last mission: to fake the defection of a senior British agent to an East German operative named Mundt, and then to frame Mundt as a British double agent. Fiedler, one of Mundt's subordinates—who already suspects that Mundt is a double agent—is targeted as a potentially useful adjunct.


To bring Leamas to the East Germans' attention as a potential defector, the Circus sacks him, leaving him with only a small pension. He takes and loses a miserable job in a run-down library. There, he meets Liz Gold, who is the secretary of her local cell of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and they become lovers. Before taking the "final plunge" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears. Then, after getting Control to agree to leave Liz alone, Leamas initiates the mission by assaulting a local grocer in order to get himself arrested.


After his release from jail he is approached by an East German recruiter and taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting progressively higher echelons of the Abteilung, the East German intelligence service. During his debriefing he drops casual hints about British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung. Meanwhile, Smiley, posing as a friend of Leamas, appears at Liz's apartment to question her about him and to offer financial help.


In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. The two men engage in extended discussions, in which Leamas's pragmatism is contrasted with Fiedler's idealistic outlook. Leamas observes that the young, brilliant Fiedler is concerned about the righteousness of his motivation and the morality of his actions. Mundt, on the other hand, is a brutal, opportunistic mercenary, an ex-Nazi who joined the Communists after the war out of expediency, and who remains an anti-Semite.


The power struggle within the Abteilung is exposed when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured. The leaders of the East German régime intervene after learning that Fiedler applied for an arrest warrant for Mundt that same day. Fiedler and Mundt are released, then summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera. At the trial, Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler has matched to the movements of Mundt, while Fiedler presents other evidence implicating Mundt as a British agent.


Meanwhile, Liz, who had been invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange, is forced to testify at the tribunal. Called by Mundt's attorney as a witness she admits that Smiley paid her apartment lease after visiting her, and that she promised Leamas that she would not look for him after he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realizing that their cover is blown, Leamas offers to tell all in exchange for Liz's freedom, admitting that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent. But when the tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler, Leamas finally understands the true nature of Control and Smiley's scheme.


Liz is confined to a jail cell, but Mundt releases her and puts her in a car that will take her to freedom; Leamas is at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, Leamas explains everything: Mundt is, in fact, a double agent reporting to Smiley. The target of Leamas's mission was Fiedler, not Mundt, because Fiedler was close to exposing Mundt. Leamas and Liz unwittingly provided Mundt with the means of discrediting Leamas, and in turn, Fiedler. Their intimate relationship facilitated the plan. Liz realizes to her horror that their actions have enabled the Circus to protect their asset, the despicable Mundt, at the expense of the thoughtful and idealistic Fiedler. Liz asks what will become of Fiedler; Leamas replies that he will most likely be executed.


Liz's love for Leamas overcomes her moral disgust, and she accompanies Leamas to a break in the wire fronting the Berlin Wall, from which they can climb the wall and escape to West Berlin. Leamas climbs to the top but, as he reaches down to help Liz, she is shot by a Mundt operative as a "final touch" to make the plot perfect and to avoid any possible suspicion of Leamas' escape. She falls and as Smiley calls out to Leamas from the other side of the wall, he hesitates. Then he climbs back down the Eastern side of the wall, to be shot and killed too.


Fantastic book guys go and read it.