A Small Town In Germany

New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1975. Eighth Dell printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. [6], 311, [1] pages. Name of previous owner in ink on first page. Ink note on second page. Preface to the American Edition. David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 1931 – 12 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. "A sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. During the 1950s and 1960s he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He ran agents, conducted interrogations, tapped telephone lines, and effected break-ins. Encouraged by Lord Clanmorris (who wrote crime novels as "John Bingham"), and while being an active MI5 officer, Cornwell began writing his first novel, Call for the Dead (1961). Le Carré's third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller, was adapted as an award-winning film and remains one of his best-known works. This success allowed him to leave MI6 to become a full-time author. His novels which have been adapted for film or television include The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), Smiley's People (1979), The Little Drummer Girl (1983), The Night Manager (1993), The Tailor of Panama (1996), The Constant Gardener (2001), A Most Wanted Man (2008), and Our Kind of Traitor (2010). Philip Roth said that A Perfect Spy (1986) was "the best English novel since the war." A Small Town in Germany is a 1968 espionage novel by British author John le Carré. It is set in Bonn, the "small town" of the title, against a background of concern that former Nazis were returning to positions of power in West Germany. It is notable for being le Carré's first novel not to feature his recurring protagonist George Smiley or "The Circus," le Carré's fictionalized version of MI6. The novel is set in the late 1960s, in Bonn, the capital of West Germany. Great Britain is hoping to gain support from the West German government in a bid to enter the European common market. From London, Alan Turner, an official from the British Foreign Office, arrives to investigate the disappearance of Leo Harting, a minor British Embassy officer; moreover, secret files have disappeared with him. The embassy's head of Chancery, Rawley Bradfield, is hostile to Turner's investigation. Despite that, he is dinner party host to Turner and Ludwig Siebkron, head of the German Interior Ministry; the latter is close to industrialist Klaus Karfeld, who is successfully building a new nationalist political movement which is anti-British and anti-Western European, and which seeks to turn West Germany away from Western Europe and bring it closer to Communist Eastern Europe. Great Britain's diplomatic mission perceives growing support for Karfeld's movement as a threat to obtaining support for Britain's entry into the Common Market. Initially, Turner suspects Harting is a spy, probably working for a Communist government. He comes to discover that Harting had once been a war crime investigator in Germany and he has been secretly using Chancery resources to continue investigating Karfeld's career as the war-time administrator of a Nazi laboratory that poisoned 31 half-Jews, crimes for which Karfeld had been investigated but for which he escaped responsibility. Harting is, in fact, hiding from Siebkron, who is aware of Karfeld's crimes and seeks to protect him from being exposed. To Turner's chagrin, Bradfield is unsympathetic to Harting's circumstances and uninterested in protecting him because he considers him a criminal and a political embarrassment. Turner discovers that Harting recently learned Karfeld is immune from prosecution due to the statute of limitations. Turner deduces that a violent incident at a recent Karfeld rally, in which a mob stormed a British library and fatally assaulted the female librarian- revealed to be Harting's ex-girlfriend- occurred because Harting had attempted to shoot Karfeld from a window of the library. Turner believes Harting may try again to assassinate Karfeld at his next rally, which Turner and Bradfield attend. The novel ends with Karfeld addressing the rally and delivering an anti-Western European, Nazi-apologist speech until violence erupts between his supporters and a group of socialist counter-protestors. In the ensuing chaos, Harting attempts to shoot Karfeld but misses; Karfeld's supporters kill him as Turner rushes to his aid. As Turner watches helplessly, they search his body for the last pieces of incriminating evidence against Karfeld. Condition: Good.

Keywords: David John Moore Cornwell, Espionage, Spy, Intelligence Service, Neo-Nazi, European Common Market, West Germany, Intrigue, Diplomacy, War Crimes

[Book #85682]

Price: $15.00

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