Call for the Dead
First edition
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| Author | John le Carré |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | George Smiley |
| Genre | Crime, Spy novel |
| Published | 1961 Gollancz |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 157 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 48961892 |
| Followed by | A Murder of Quality |
Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain. It also introduces a fictional version of British Intelligence, called "the Circus" because of its location in Cambridge Circus, that is apparently based on MI6 and that recurs throughout le Carré's spy novels.
Foreign Office civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently commits suicide after a routine security check by Circus agent George Smiley. Smiley had interviewed and cleared Fennan only days previously after an anonymous accusation; because of this, Circus head of service Maston sets up Smiley to be blamed for Fennan's death. While interviewing Fennan's wife Elsa in her home, Smiley answers the telephone, expecting the call to be for him. It is a requested 8:30 call from the telephone exchange.
Smiley meets Inspector Mendel, a police officer on the verge of retirement who is investigating the Fennan case, who finds out that the call had been requested by Fennan the night before. When Elsa later tells Smiley that she requested the call from the exchange (which Smiley knows to be false), he tells Mendel and Maston. However, Maston unequivocally orders Smiley to refrain from any further investigation into Fennan's death. Back in his office, Smiley receives a letter posted by Fennan the night before, requesting an urgent meeting that day. Believing that Fennan was murdered to prevent the meeting, Smiley promptly resigns from the Circus and attaches his resignation to Fennan's letter, which he forwards to Maston.
Arriving home, Smiley notices a movement in the drawing room. He rings his own door bell and is met by a tall, fair, handsome stranger. Smiley skilfully avoids entering. He notes all the number plates of the seven cars parked in the road. Mendel traces one car to a car dealer, Adam Scarr. Scarr tells Mendel that he rents the car out twice a month to a stranger known as "Blondie", whose description matches Smiley's intruder. Smiley is subsequently attacked and nearly killed while trying to track the car to "Blondie", and Scarr is killed. Investigating further, Mendel learns that Elsa attends a local theatre twice a month with "Blondie", and that the two exchange music cases at each performance. "Blondie" is soon identified by fellow Circus agent Peter Guillam as Hans-Dieter Mundt, an East German agent under diplomatic cover working for Dieter Frey, a German spy of Smiley's during World War II who has since become an important East German agent. Smiley believes that Frey would use a courier like Mundt to service only one highly placed resident agent. Guillam reports that Mundt has fled England.
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