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A comment on John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is the ultimate spy novel.

Re:John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is th... by kaliqi_ on Sunday September 03, 2023 @11:24PM (#37376842)
What I like most about John Le Carre's novels is the length they go in breaking down the bureaucratic, political, and psychological aspects of espionage. Each book is another window into the actual mechanics of intelligence work.

So it's not surprising that quite a bit of common espionage vocab was popularised by him - e.g. "mole", "honey trap", "intelligence customer"

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Re:John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is th... by tcmart14 on Monday September 04, 2023 @12:44AM (#37377190)
I love the break down, but also how it paints that there are no saints in the line of work. Everyone is dirty for the most part with grey morales. There are no true 'good' guys or 'bad' guys in Smiley's novels, its just one side trying to out compete the other. With the exception of Smiley himself having the cleanest hands.
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