“There’s only one law in this game,” Leamas retorted. “Mundt is their man; he gives them what they need. That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it? Leninism—the expediency of temporary alliances. What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.”
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold belongs to a genre that I usually wouldn’t read, but that is the beauty of book clubs. This seminal spy novel is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and I’m glad I plodded through it. Alec Leamas is a British spy at the end of his career who agrees to one last assignment. Through his exploits, the story focuses on Cold War attitudes and brings Leamas behind the Iron Curtain to dethrone a powerful GDR (German Democratic Republic) agent. When interacting with East Germans and discussing Communism, the reader returns to the philosophy of the day and the roots of many modern socio-political battles.
The well-rounded characters expose and emphasize the duplicity of spies and the heartlessness of officials involved in espionage. Some also reveal their humanity. Some memorable lines force one to wonder whether cultures and beliefs differ when crossing lines of demarcation. Indeed the story forces us to question which ideologies are worth defending.
