The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carré's bestselling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville, and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatizations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels. Call for the Dead is the first Smiley novel, which sees him looking into an apparent suicide only to uncover a murderous conspiracy; A Murder of Quality finds Smiley investigating a murder in a private school; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold introduces Alec Leamas, a British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in tatters; The Looking Glass War features former spy Fred Leiser, lured back from retirement to investigate a claim that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first book in the Karla trilogy, and sees Smiley searching for a mole who has infiltrated the Circus; The Honourable Schoolboy sees Smiley determined to destroy his nemesis, Karla, and his spy networks; Smiley's People finds George Smiley called out of retirement to exorcize some Cold War ghosts from his clandestine past; The Secret Pilgrim sees Smiley invited to dine with the eager new recruits at the Circus. He offers them his thoughts on espionage and, in doing so, prompts a former colleague to re-examine his own eventful secret life. Duration: 20 hours approx
John Le Carré is a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s he worked for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels under a pen name. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international best-seller, and it remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author. Le Carré established himself as a writer of espionage fiction. In 2008, the Times ranked le Carré 22nd on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2011, he won the Goethe Medal, a yearly prize given by the Goethe Institute.
