David Cornwell aka John le Carré RIP

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One of my favorites. I think The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is his masterpiece. Followed closely by Smiley's People.

I also like Naive and Sentimental Lover quite a bit. It is not a spy novel. He wrote it after the breakdown of his first marriage, and he seems to have written it to work out some issues in his past. His relationships with his father and ex-wife mainly. It is quite a brave novel, in the sense that he bared a bit more of his inner self that most of us would dare.

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This has me thinking of spy novels. Even though le Carré is way way up there, I think Graham Greene is a bit better. Both transcend the spy novel genre. I would call them both political novelists. I'll also mention Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. The third book of the quartet, Mountolive, is my favorite international intrigue/espionage novel (though most people would probably not put it in that category). A Coffin for Demetrios by Eric Ambler is another favorite.