Recommendations based on Call for the Deadby John le Carré

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  1. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

    by John le Carré
    A British agent's mission to infiltrate East Germany during the Cold War, full of suspense and intrigue.

    In this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With unsurpassed knowledge ... (Goodreads)

  2. A Murder of Quality

    by John le Carré
    A retired intelligence officer investigates a murder at a prestigious British boarding school.

    John le Carré's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him – and his hero, British ... (Goodreads)

  3. The Looking Glass War

    by John le Carré
    Cold War espionage, involving a small British intelligence unit in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

    During the early 1960s, the formerly renowned British military intelligence organisation known colloquially as "The Department" is floundering. Surviving on long past memories of its aerial ... (Wikipedia)

  4. The Big Sleep

    by Raymond Chandler
    Private eye investigates a complex case involving a wealthy family and blackmail.

    Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood, in the month of October. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur ... (Wikipedia)

  5. The Alienist

    by Caleb Carr
    A gripping murder-mystery set in 19th century New York, exposing the dark underbelly of the city.

    Narrated from the first-person perspective of John Moore, a crime reporter for, The New York Times, , the novel begins on January 8, 1919, the day that Theodore Roosevelt is buried. Moore has dinner ... (Wikipedia)

  6. Archangel

    by Robert Harris
    A British historian uncovers a secret Stalin-era plot to create a puppet monarch in Russia. The past and present collide in a thrilling tale of espionage and betrayal.

    While attending a conference in Moscow , historian Christopher "Fluke" Kelso is met by an old man named Papu Rapava, who claims to have been present at the death of Joseph Stalin . Immediately after ... (Wikipedia)

  7. The Bear and the Dragon

    by Tom Clancy
    A thrilling geopolitical espionage mission to protect the US from a dangerous foreign threat.

    In Moscow, SVR director Sergey Golovko survives an attack on his way to work, when a car identical to the armored white Mercedes that he was in was shot with an RPG-7 , killing the occupants (one of ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Lucky Jim

    by Kingsley Amis
    A story of a young lecturer struggling to make it in academia, while learning the importance of self-discovery.

    Jim Dixon is a lecturer in medieval history at a red brick university in the English Midlands . He has made an unsure start and, towards the end of the academic year, is concerned about losing his ... (Wikipedia)

  9. The Ipcress File

    by Len Deighton
    A British spy investigates a brainwashing scheme. Full of twists and turns, it's a classic espionage thriller.

    The novel is framed as the unnamed protagonist delivering his personal report on "the IPCRESS affair" directly to the Minister of Defence , thus making the novel itself the 'IPCRESS File' of the ... (Wikipedia)

  10. Slow Horses

    by Mick Herron
    A group of disgraced MI5 spies are tasked with solving a murder case, uncovering secrets in the process.

    The first book in CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning British espionage series starring a team of MI5 agents united by one common bond: They've screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves. ... (Goodreads)

  11. The Talented Mr. Ripley

    by Patricia Highsmith
    A young conman's descent into a life of crime, with deadly consequences.

    Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living in New York City by whatever means necessary, including a series of small-time confidence scams . One day, he is approached by shipping magnate ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Key to Rebecca

    by Ken Follett
    A desperate mission to uncover a Nazi spy in Cairo during WWII.

    Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca took readers and critics by storm when first published more than twenty years ago. Today, it remains one of the best espionage novels ever written. Look out for Ken’s ... (Goodreads)

  13. Night Soldiers

    by Alan Furst
    Espionage thriller set in 1930's Europe, as the world slowly descends into war.

    Bulgaria, 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its ... (Goodreads)

  14. Stranger in a Strange Land

    by Robert A. Heinlein
    A human raised by Martians must find his place in a hostile Earth society.

    The story focuses on a human raised on Mars and his adaptation to and understanding of humans and their culture. It is set in a post- Third World War United States, where organized religions are ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The Power and the Glory

    by Graham Greene
    A whiskey priest in 1930s Mexico struggles with his faith and morality while on the run from authorities.

    The main character is an unnamed 'whisky priest', who combines a great power for self-destruction with pitiful cravenness, an almost painful penitence, and a desperate quest for dignity. , By the ... (Wikipedia)

  16. Gorky Park

    by Martin Cruz Smith
    A thrilling murder mystery, set in the Soviet Union, uncovering secrets and conspiracies.

    The story follows Arkady Renko , a chief investigator for the Moscow militsiya , who is assigned to a case involving three corpses found in Gorky Park , an amusement park in Moscow. The victims - two ... (Wikipedia)

  17. The Third Man

    by Graham Greene
    A British writer's adventure to post-war Vienna, uncovering the truth behind a mysterious death.

    The American Western writer Holly Martins arrives in post– Second World War Vienna (which has been divided between the Allies : the Americans , British , French , and Soviets ) seeking his childhood ... (Wikipedia)

  18. The Fallen Angel

    by Daniel Silva
    A gripping espionage thriller as an art restorer is thrown into a world of international conspiracy.

    Unlike recent titles in the series, this book is set primarily in Italy as Allon helps the Pope 's private secretary, Monsignor Luigi Donati with a case that is troubling The Vatican . The conclusion ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

    by Arthur Conan Doyle
    A detective's collection of cases, full of intrigue and suspense.

    The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

    by Arthur Conan Doyle
    A collection of adventures of the world's most famous detective, solving mysterious cases.

    'If I were assured of your eventual destruction I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept my own.' In The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes , the consulting detective's notoriety as the ... (Goodreads)

  21. The Day of the Jackal

    by Frederick Forsyth
    An assassin attempts to kill the president of France in a thrilling race against time.

    The book begins in 1962 with the (historical) failed attempt on de Gaulle 's life plotted by, among others, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart : ... (Wikipedia)

  22. The Sun Also Rises

    by Ernest Hemingway
    A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.

    On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)

  23. The Hound of the Baskervilles

    by Arthur Conan Doyle
    A thrilling detective story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as they investigate a mysterious murder on the moor.

    Dr James Mortimer calls on Sherlock Holmes in London for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the yew alley of his manor on Dartmoor in Devon . The death was attributed ... (Wikipedia)

  24. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

    by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    A single day in a Soviet prison camp, detailing the hardships and struggle of the inmates.

    Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been sentenced to a camp in the Soviet gulag system. He was accused of becoming a spy after being captured briefly by the Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II ... (Wikipedia)

  25. The English Girl

    by Daniel Silva
    A young English woman goes missing in Corsica, and Gabriel Allon is called to investigate. The case leads him to a web of international intrigue.

    Madeline Hart is a rising star in Britain’s governing party: beautiful, intelligent, driven by an impoverished childhood to succeed. But she is also a woman with a dark secret: she is the lover of ... (Goodreads)

  26. The War of the Worlds

    by H.G. Wells
    A Martian invasion of Earth, exploring the limits of human resilience.

    The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth because their own resources ... (Wikipedia)

  27. An Officer and a Spy

    by Robert Harris
    A story of espionage and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Dreyfus Affair.

    Upon being promoted to run the Statistical Section , the top secret headquarters of French military intelligence, Georges Picquart begins to discover that the evidence used to convict Alfred Dreyfus ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Casino Royale

    by Ian Fleming
    A secret agent is sent on a mission to defeat a dangerous criminal mastermind.

    M , the enigmatic leader of the British Secret Service , assigns James Bond , a young agent newly promoted to "007" status after killing a Norwegian double agent during the war , to bankrupt Le ... (Wikipedia)

  29. All Quiet on the Western Front

    by Erich Maria Remarque
    A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.

    The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The Power of the Dog

    by Don Winslow
    A powerful and intense story of two men and the Mexican-American drug war.

    From the bestselling author of Savages (now an Oliver Stone film). This novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Art Montana is an ... (Goodreads)