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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: A George Smiley Novel by John le Carré is definitely not an easy espionage novel that I have ever read. And I have read this novel three times before. I have been reading it again since last week. Still, I often have to repeat some passages to fully understand the entire story.

Sometimes, I think that I keep misunderstanding a few passages of the novel, so I’ll have to read them again. Or maybe, these particular passages really get into me and my imagination, so then I’ll feel the need to repeat them, again and again. I don’t know why for sure. One thing I know for sure that you just cannot get enough of reading this novel. Because you want to. Because you need to. And because you cannot prevent yourself from re-reading it.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré somehow keeps bringing you back to Alec Leamas’s world (I believe that it’s le Carré’s own world). A beyond-imagination-world where a secret is the only keyword that you’ll have to keep to survive. You know that this kind of world does exist but you simply don’t know its (real) existence, let alone understand it.

Let me quote one passage of this novel that I’ve always found almost poetic, romantic even:

There was only one light in the checkpoint, a reading lamp with a green shade, but the glow of the arclights, like artificial moonlight, filled the cabin. Darkness had fallen, and with it silence. They spoke as if they were afraid of being overheard. Leamas went to the window and waited.

In front of him the road and to either side the Wall,  dirty, ugly thing of breeze blocks and stands of barbed wire, lit with cheap yellow light, like the backdrop for a concentration camp. East and west of the Wall lay the unrestored part of Berlin, a half-world of ruin, drawn in two dimensions crags of war.

This is a espionage novel worth (re-)reading, so do not just take my word for it and read this novel for yourself, especially if you’re already a fan of espionage novels. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré is available in Kindle, hardcover, paperback and audiobook format.

Check and try the sample of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: A George Smiley Novel by John le Carré: