Way back in my high school days, I had an English teacher who had us reading some of the important works of fiction. One I remembered was The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré. I hated it. While it was before the days of my “Rule of 50,” I did not like the first 50 pages—if I actually read that far. Recently, I decided to give it another read, and I am glad I did. Spy turned out to be a first-rate thriller. Missing out on the last 200 pages proved to be a mistake. The novel ends with a spectacular finish.
John Le Carré is the pseudonym for a British civil servant in one of the Whitehall ministries. He was born David John Moore Cornwell on October 19, 1931, in Poole, Dorset, England. At 16, he left England to attend the University of Bern in Switzerland. He has written 24 novels so far.