#40 in Spy & espionage
Call for the Dead
- 160
- Pages
- about 3 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Call for the Dead”, le Carré’s first novel, is closer to a classic murder mystery with spies than to the intricate espionage of his later books. It introduces George Smiley and runs to only 160 pages. Readers who know those later novels find the plot well built, if simpler. Some find the style and pacing tiring.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
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, which is apparently based on MI6 and recurs throughout le Carré's spy novels. Call for the Dead was adapted for film as The Deadly Affair (1966).
Reading order · George Smiley series
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 237 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 62% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Spy & espionage average of 7.6. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 237 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is Call for the Dead?
It has 160 pages — shorter than 100% of the ranked books in Spy & espionage.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Spy & espionage — with scores between 7.3 and 8.1, closest to this book.
