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Summary: A beautiful story within a cold-war shell
Review: As someone who has always been facinated by the world of secret agents and the cold war, this book was a wonderful step in my education of what went on during that period. I have seen more than enough movies, and I have read a few fiction and non-fiction books about the era, but this was a fictional work of art. Although it is a short book, I often had to go back and reread parts because of the enormous complexity. From a literature standpoint, Le Carre's characters are so real that you don't need to try to imagine what they are really like; they simply are what they are while avoiding your prototypical characters. I would definately recommend this book for anyone with any interest in the cold war, spies, or simply good works of literature. A true classic.
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Summary: Probaly the best spy story ever written!
Review: And I mean it, I'm a spy buff and have read a lot of them, ranging from the best to the worst and this is amongst the best! It's a story about a British spy runner, Alec Leamas, who takes care of all the defectors from the other side of the Berlin Wall but when his agents start getting found out and killed one by one(by the head of the Abteilung, Fiedler) his boss sends him to the other side of the Wall to play a disgraced spy who wants to defect but who's real motive is to cause havoc in the Abteilung! From that moment begins the greatest quest for the truth in spy fiction history! Le Carre is a true master of suspense, take my word for it, you won't even get till the ending! Deserves 5 stars!
Rating:
Summary: Probably one of the best spy novels
Review: I didn't actually read the book, but I listened to an audio version. This is one of the best spy novels ever. It takes time to build, but the ending is shattering. As a reader, you find yourself playing out complicated fact scenarios from each character's point of view. From one point of view, the facts reveal one truth; from another the same facts reveal a completely different story. Which one is true? More importantly, which one will the characters believe? If what you like about spy novels is the tortured logic spies use ("If you know that I know that you know that I know...."), this is what you are looking for.
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Summary: Baby, it's cold outside
Review: What is to be said about John Le Carré's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD? It's shockingly entertaining, it's genuinely unpredictable, and it doesn't offer up a cheap get-out-of-jail-free ending. The characters are cursory without being shallow, the plot moves with amazing speed, and the action keeps bouncing along. In short, this is pretty much the perfect spy novel. As engrossing as it is realistic, and as absorbing as it is intriguing.SPY is a book based almost entirely around its plot, and while I usually give a storyline summary in my reviews, I don't think I'll be doing that this time. You see, the novel relies so much upon its double-crosses and back-stabbings that even the parts in the beginning (which are usually fair game for reviewers to spoil) can be puzzling and fun to follow. Every part of the story is interesting. Where other novels would still be setting up the premise, SPY has already started playing the game. Apart from the deviously clever plot, there is one additional thing I want to single out for praise -- the relationship that takes place between two of the main characters. On paper, it's a fairly standard idea: an older male spy paired with a younger, idealistic, innocent woman. But in execution it's a very nicely unstated bit of romance. It felt real, in part because Le Carré didn't beat us over the head with the details, merely sketched in the broader strokes and let the reader's imagination do the rest. SPY isn't a story where the characters trade artificially witty banter in between their death-defying action sequences. The protagonist spends most of the book tired, battered and confused. It can be a mystery at times guessing whether he really knows what's going on, whether he is the chess-player or the pawn. When one of the book's villains tries to engage him in a verbal battle over whose society and philosophy is the superior, he can only grumble and offer insults in reply. It's this sort of likable realism that makes the book the success that it is. At the time he wrote this, Le Carré had already joined and left Her Majesty's Secret Service, so I can't help but wonder if the plot, which seems intricate and elaborate in a fictional context, was actually a straightforward retelling of a standard spy-game.
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Summary: The Cold War at its Coldest
Review: A word of warning: "The Spy who Came in From the Cold" is not just an espionage thriller, it's a horror story. British MI-5 agent Alec Leamas, the eponymous hero of John Le Carre's brutal little espionage masterpiece "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", discovers that being a secret agent at the height of the Cold War is a little like being a man outside in the cold, looking in on the friendly warmth of home and hearth but unable to come in---so close, yet so far. His life depends on keeping up a charade, on cloaking his intentions and lying about his work. He can trust no one but himself, and he keeps an eagle eye on himself. To make matters worse, a botched defection at the Berlin Wall sends Leamas's career into free fall, prompting his recall to London, a subsequent reassignment to a desk job in Personnel, and, simultaneously, the hatching of one of British intelligence chief Control's more byzantine little schemes: use Leamas's fall from grace as a means of ferreting out and destroying Hans Dieter Mundt, a high-ranking East German master spy and Leamas's shadowy nemesis. To say more would be unfair to the reader. Le Carre, himself a former British intelligence officer, is perfectly suited to composing the elaborate, excruciating fencing match between London and Moscow that lies at the heart of so many of his best tales. The typical Le Carre protagonist and his handlers are not James Bondian pulp heroes with Union Jacks painted on the pommel of their 9MM Walther PPKs; instead, they tend to be bland, non-descript ciphers, poker-faced and cynical creatures who hide their machinations under bland exteriors. "The Spy" is Le Carre at his deftest, and the Cold War at its coldest. Leamas is re-introduced into the world as a potential defector, but his ruse is haunted by the unexpected relationship with a British librarian he leaves behind in London. And really, the relationship, and the emotions it awakens in this grizzled Cold Warrior, is what makes "Spy" so compulsively entertaining and riveting: Alec Leamas wants to love and to reveal himself, just as his East German interrogator Fiedler wants desperately to believe in the purity of the Revolution and in the ideals of Communism. But this is a Le Carre novel, and ideals and emotions are the luxuries of the dead or the doomed. "The Spy" has the advantage of excellent pacing and deft characterization, and as with many of Le Carre's best novels, it manages to condense a considerable amount of treachery in a minimum of exposition. Le Carre is not only a good storyteller and a master at plotting out the grim duel between his spies, he is also a consummately gifted writer who uses words like a surgeon uses a scalpel. Best of all, "The Spy" is a nastily clever work, in which the plot turns in on itself suddenly and viciously, casting some light on a dark arena in which no one can be trusted. "The Spy who Came in From the Cold" is a classic in espionage and a timeless literary masterpiece, but it is also a ruthless and jolting work whose cynicism is horrific. It is a bracingly good read and completely unforgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Not My Usual Genre, But An Excellent Read
Review: I was given the task of selling of the library of the clinic where I work (we needed the space) and, mixed in with 150 psychology and social work texts, was a copy of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold". I've read quite a few James Bond novels, but this might be the only serious spy thriller I've read. I state this to make it clear that I have no ability to rank this book within its genre. That said, I can say that this book is intricate, well-written, fast-paced, loaded with intrigue, and has good character development for the core characters, along some of the peripheral characters seem interchangeable. Alec Leamas is a British Intelligence agent working in Cold War East Germany, organizing a network of information sources. When his agents start getting killed, he is recalled to London, and a very elaborate plot to address the problem is launched. This is not a pretty story with an admirable hero, a damsel in distress, fancy spy gadgets, and a happy ending. It seems obsolete now, with the Cold War over and the Berlin Wall gone, but it is very true to its era. The copy I read was the 1964 first American printing of the story, and there were more typographical errors than I'm used to seeing, including whole lines of text out of order. However, this didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the book. If you're not accustomed to reading spy thrillers, and you can handle a gritty story, you might want to give this a try. If you are a fan of the genre, and you haven't read this one, you're probably missing something.
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Summary: Awesome Book
Review: Le Carre is the master. I know his new book is out, but this is still a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Moderately entertaining spy novel
Review: I found this to be a slightly entertaining spy novel; I don't think it is anywhere close to justifying the superlative reviews that have been ladled on it, both on this website and by others. After reading Ian Fleming's Bond novels (and perhaps I was spoiled by Fleming) I was extremely hopeful for this book, ostensibly the "finest" spy novel ever written. One of the more exciting aspects of the book is when the main character is spirited into East Germany, and meets increasingly interesting and intellectual interrogators. The exciting middle makes up, in part, for the slightly silly beginning and melodramatic conclusion. The main romance was a bit difficult to believe, and the plot was somewhat formulaic, but I suppose it isn't too bad. Anyway, even if I'm the only person in the world who doesn't love it, and my review is entirely offbase, I figure that your slightly diminished expectations will be exceeded even farther by the book, and you will be more delighted because of my lukewarm review. If you do buy this book, I hope you enjoy it more than I did.
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Summary: A Brilliant Spy Novel From A Master Craftsman!
Review: John Le Carre's disillusioned, cynical and spellbinding spy novels are so unique because they are based on a wide knowledge of international espionage. Le Carre, (pen name for David John Moore Cornwell), acquired this knowledge firsthand during his years as an operations agent for the British M15. Kim Philby, the infamous defector, actually gave Le Carre's name to the Russians. The author's professional experience and his tremendous talent as a master storyteller and superb writer make "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" one of the most brilliant novels I have read about spying and the Cold War. Graham Greene certainly agreed with me, or I with him, when he remarked that it is the best spy story he had ever read. The novel won Le Carré the Somerset Maugham Award. The novel's anti-hero, Alec Leamas, is the antithesis of the glamorous action-hero spy, James Bond. A successful espionage agent for the British during WWII, Leamus continued on with counter-intelligence operations after the war, finding it difficult to adjust to life in peacetime. He eventually became the head of Britain's Berlin Bureau at the height of the Cold War. Leamus, slowly going to seed, drinking too much, world weary, had been losing his German double agents, one by one, to East German Abteilung assassins. Finally, with the loss of his best spy, Karl Riemeck, Leamus has no agents left. His anguish at Riemeck's death is palpable. He has begun to tire of the whole spy game, as his boss at Cambridge Circus, (British Intelligence), seems to understand. Leamus is called back to London, but instead of being eased out of operations, called "coming in from the Cold," or retiring completely, he is asked to accept one last, dangerous assignment. "Control," the man Leamus reports to, asks him if he is up to "taking-out" Hans Dieter Mundt, a top East German operations agent and the man responsible for the deaths of Leamus' agents. The ploy is elaborate, and if successful, it will conclude with Mundt's own men killing him. With much planning Leamus convincingly changes his lifestyle and sets himself up as bait as a potential defector to the Eastern Block countries. As Leamus works efficiently toward his goal, two unexpected problems come-up - problems that he is unaware of until much later, when it is almost too late to resolve them. First, he falls in love with a young woman, a member of the Communist Party, who was supposed to be part of his cover, nothing more. And second, Control and the Circus have embedded plots within plots to further their end, which they don't see fit to reveal to Leamus - now operating in the dark. Le Carre portrays spying as a dirty game of acting, betrayal, lying, excruciating tension, and assumed identities. The espionage methods of East and West are the same. The only difference is their economic ideologies. There is a seemingly endless game of chess between the superpowers, and spies are as expendable as pawns. This is a short novel, 219 pages, and very tightly written. However there is much packed into this bleak tale of the espionage business. The story has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster. And the ride is well worth it!
JANA
Rating:
Summary: Simply put.....a masterpiece
Review: This is the finest, and from what I can gather, most accurate and detailed fictional account of a spy during the Cold War that is available. For those that dont mind the lack of Clancy-like ( aka unreal) additions of "high profile assasinations" etc, this novel can give you so much pleasure from its masterfull twists and turns, as well as its desire to stay true to reality, and in doing so help the reader understand the period in which it is supposed to take place. The best story I have ever read. Period.
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