John le Carré (Pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell, b. 1931), 1961: A Call for the Dead

John le Carre is best known for his spy novels that have brought a level of pessimistic realism to spy fiction, serving as the perfect antithesis to the glamorous world of espionage portrayed in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Le Carre’s most famous fictional creation is the British spy George Smiley. Smiley is a cunning, successful spy but is emotionally inadequate as a husband and is often cuckolded by his wife Ann. Smiley appears as a character in seven of le Carre’s novels, including the celebrated Karla trilogy: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley’s People (1979).