Books by John le Carré
John le Carré (1931-2020) was David Cornwell in real life. A former spy, he became one of the world’s best-known writers of spy fiction. He is a frequently recommended author on Five Books, with his books turning up again and again in interviews on not only espionage thrillers, but also spy books more generally. His most recommended books are The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, the 1963 novel that catapulted him to international fame, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which according to British writer Patrick Worrall is “unquestionably one of the greatest ever espionage novels, perhaps simply one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.”
Le Carré’s most recent books were: Agent Running in the Field (2019) and Silverview, which was published posthumously in 2021. These are not his masterpieces, but enjoyable to read if you’re already a le Carré fan.
“I think A Delicate Truth is an absolutely cracking modern novel. I just love it. Let’s just put that on the table before we get donnish about it. I read it in a single sitting, and then I read it again a couple of years ago. I just love this book. It’s about misdeeds, political interference at high levels, wickedness inside the British establishment.” Read more...
Nick Harkaway, Novelist
“So The Night Manager and Single & Single are kind of a pair. Each of them is about somebody going voluntarily into a dangerous situation as an undercover figure to root out wickedness, to block bad action in the world. And it follows the person on the ground, as well as, at the same time, the activity of the people in the political apparat and the security apparat. Then, also, in both of these stories is the question: What can you do as the spy? How far can you go? And will you fall in love with the universe of this wicked person whose life you are invading? Because, of course, the bad guys have a great time, you know? Again, you’re coming down to the line where the dividing line between good and bad evaporates and you are left in the grey zone, an area where you can’t tell whether you’ve crossed over the line because you are so close. The line is everywhere.” Read more...
Nick Harkaway, Novelist
“The sin in Single & Single is so viscerally wicked and extraordinary. I won’t say what it is, but if you are looking for a book about international wickedness in the post-Cold War period, I don’t think I can imagine a more perfect metaphor for it that is also a literal truth about the nature of the world. Something my father did extraordinarily well. Then, thrown in with that, just a wonderful riff on wicked international private banking and enforcement. It’s classic le Carré.” Read more...
Nick Harkaway, Novelist
“The Looking Glass War is a very, very bleak story…it’s darkly humorous, but the humor is buried quite deep under this bleak tale of a completely incompetent intelligence operation that is mounted by a small intelligence service in Britain…I think it may be le Carré’s best work. The bleak emptiness of the motivations really says something about the cynicism of the world of espionage, particularly, perhaps, in the early period of the Cold War.” Read more...
“George Smiley comes out of retirement and does a bit of detective work. It’s a redemption story: a chance for Smiley to tie up the loose ends of his life and career. He gets a shot at his nemesis, the head of Russian intelligence—code name Karla, who is this fiendishly cunning Soviet spymaster…It’s brilliant. I think it’s better than Tinker, Tailor. I won’t give away the ending, but it has a very satisfying sense of closure to it. It’s wonderfully written.” Read more...
Five Classic European Spy Novels
Patrick Worrall, Thriller and Crime Writer
“I find it really interesting that such a big book by a bestselling author is so strange and slippery and evasive in the way it tells itself. I think it’s fascinating, although I haven’t read enough le Carré to say it’s definitively his best. There’s an outrageous quote on my edition from Philip Roth, who says “it’s the best English novel since the war.” I can’t go that far, but I do absolutely love it.” Read more...
Chris Power, Novelist
Silverview: A Novel
by John le Carré
Yep, it's true. Even though he died in December 2020, John le Carré (aka David Cornwell) has a new book. It was completed before he died and he gave his blessing to his sons to publish it. Silverview is a house on the edge of the seaside town where the main protagonist, Julian Lawndsley, has retreated to set up a bookshop. Silverview is very le Carré in its slow pace, and reads almost like a languid farewell from the greatest spy novelist of the 20th century.
Agent Running in the Field: A Novel
by John le Carré
Agent Running in the Field is the last book John le Carré wrote that was published while he was still alive. It came out in 2019 (he died in 2020) and is perhaps best described as his anti-Brexit novel. He narrates the audiobook himself.
“As a standalone, Tinker, Tailer is an absolutely top-grade detective story. It’s all about this process I talked about, the archaeology of truth. There has been a gasping crisis or a deep fracture in how the world ought to work, Smiley comes along, and little by little he brushes away the dust, the misdirection, the obfuscation and he holds up the truth and says: This is what happened, here it is. There’s an actual ‘I expect you’re all wondering why I called you here this evening’ reveal. It’s classic. People don’t always realise that, because the theatre of espionage is very strong. But in the end that crime-investigation-solution shape is what stops you from getting lost in the book, and it’s incredibly elegantly executed, in a completely different way to The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It meanders, it conceals, it shows you one thing but tells you another. You don’t realise that you know things. It’s just an extraordinary piece of writing, something that has been incredibly successfully adapted.” Read more...
Nick Harkaway, Novelist
“A terrific story, it goes without saying. For one thing, it comes from the golden age when le Carré still cared about plot. But it’s his gift for dialogue that electrifies all his books.” Read more...
Robert Cottrell, Journalist
“t runs on rails from its inception to a point of crisis from which there is no return. And it’s really beautifully and brilliantly executed in its inevitability. It’s totally bleak, yet at the same time there is a feather of victory in it as well. It’s a really extraordinary book.” Read more...
Nick Harkaway, Novelist
“There is actually only one spy in The Constant Gardener, an MI6 officer in Kenya, who I think at one point is involved with Quayle, the lead character, because he needs a piece of information about his dead wife.” Read more...
Charles Cumming, Novelist
Interviews where books by John le Carré were recommended
The best books on Espionage, recommended by Charles Cumming
Leading British spy writer Charles Cumming found his vocation at 25 after he was approached by MI6. He says that experience, brief but interesting, was crying out to be dramatised
The Best John le Carré Books, selected by Nick Harkaway
John le Carré—often credited as the best spy novelist of all time—wrote 26 books over the course of his career. We asked Nick Harkaway, his son and the author of Karla’s Choice (the best spy thriller of 2024, according to our interview with spy book expert Shane Whaley), to select the five best John le Carré novels: from the Cold War espionage stories that made his name to more contemporary thrillers set in a world of international crime syndicates.
The best books on Spies, recommended by Ben Macintyre
The British public-school system, with its hidden homosexuality and feelings of loneliness, encouraged subterfuge and led to a generation of great spy writers and spies, suggests author and journalist Ben Macintyre. He picks the best books on spies.
The best books on The Secret Service, recommended by Keith Jeffery
The author of the only authorized history of MI6, Keith Jeffery, tells us about the evolution of the secret intelligence services, their representation in fiction, and the man Fleming may have had in mind when he created James Bond
The best books on Journalism, recommended by Robert Cottrell
Newspaper journalism is on its way out, regrets the former foreign correspondent and Browser co-founder Robert Cottrell. He chooses four novels that reflect the golden days and a style guide that is an equally fine work of imagination.
Five Classic European Spy Novels, recommended by Patrick Worrall
From a noir novel by Eric Ambler set in 1930s Europe to some of the great spy thrillers of the post-World War II era, British novelist Patrick Worrall, author of The Exile, talks us through five of his favourite espionage novels.
The best books on The 1970s, recommended by Andy Beckett
Andy Beckett’s choices point to a welcome reassessment of the 1970s, that much-maligned ‘gothic’ decade, and sweep from London to Los Angeles by way of Malcolm Bradbury and John le Carré
The best books on Espionage, recommended by Robert Baer
Spying is ultimately very dull and you run into the same kind of mediocrity that you encounter anywhere else in life, says former CIA operative Robert Baer. Nor do governments always listen. He recommends books on espionage—both fiction and nonfiction—that give a sense of what it’s all about.
The Best Classic Thrillers, recommended by Sam Bourne
The bestselling author tells us how his other job as a political journalist helps with thriller writing, and what makes le Carré, Forsyth and Buchan such masters of their trade
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1
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me
by Javier Marías & Margaret Jull Costa (translator) -
2
2666
by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer -
3
Honeymoon
by Patrick Modiano, translated by Barbara Wright -
4
Hurricane Season
by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes -
5
A Perfect Spy
by John le Carré
The Best Literary Thrillers, recommended by Chris Power
The Best Literary Thrillers, recommended by Chris Power
For those with a taste for fine literature, but who also enjoy their fiction with a bit of suspense and momentum, the acclaimed novelist Chris Power—author of A Lonely Man—has put together a recommended reading list of five ‘literary thrillers’, including work by Fernanda Melchor, Roberto Bolaño and the Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano.
Spy Novels Based on Real Events, recommended by Charles Beaumont
James Bond novels may be a lot of fun to read, but as a depiction of life as a spy, they are pure fantasy. Novelist and ex-spy Charles Beaumont recommends five brilliant novels based on true events—and the manipulation and dishonesty that lie at the heart of espionage work.
