"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" - le Carre Quiz

Answer: Call for the Dead

"Call for the Dead" introduces two of the main characters in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold": British agent George Smiley and East German agent Hans-Dieter Mundt, and an event in "Call for the Dead" plays a pivotal role in "Spy." "A Murder of Quality", which was a non-spy mystery, was le Carre's second novel, and "The Looking-Glass War", the follow-up to "Spy", was his fourth. "A Small Town in Germany" was le Carre's fifth novel but isn't connected to the others.

Answer: Control

Control, who never revealed his real name, had recently replaced Maston, the Minister's Advisor for Intelligence, as the head of the Circus. George Smiley and Peter Guillam are two veteran British agents who appear in key supporting roles in this novel.

Answer: Frame the head of East German intelligence as a double agent controlled by the Circus

Control asked Leamas to pretend to go to seed and ultimately provide East Germany with information indicating that Mundt, East Germany's deputy director of operations, was really a British double agent. Le Carre's "The Looking Glass War" involved gathering information about Russian missile bases just inside the East German border; his "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" was about uncovering a mole inside the Circus; and the Russian spymaster Karla defected to the West in his "Smiley's People."

Answer: Psychic research

The Bayswater Library for Psychic Research, headed by Miss Crail, was funded by an endowment, according to Mr. Pitt from the Labour Exchange, and had received a number of book donations that needed categorizing.

Answer: She was secretly an agent in the Circus

Liz was unacquainted with anyone from the intelligence community (except for Leamas), but she was young (early twenties), tall, Jewish, and a Communist - and she fell in love with Leamas while they were working together.

Answer: Issued an arrest warrant for Leamas, rumored to be for violations of the Official Secrets Act

Leamas was stunned by the arrest warrant, which was inconsistent with what Control had told him about his needing to spend no more than three weeks with the East Germans as part of the disinformation operation. He didn't believe the East Germans when they told him about it, but he then bought a copy of the "Evening Standard" at the airport in the Netherlands and saw the article for himself.

He was sure the article had been planted by Control.

Answer: He spent World War II in Canada

Fiedler was Jewish, and his family had fled Nazi Germany and spent WWII in Canada. Fiedler was known for being apolitical, and he was very fond of the English and of Western values, despite being a Communist.

Leamas came to believe that helping the honorable Fieldler take down the vicious ex-Nazi Mundt, who was well-connected politically and had murdered two of his own agents while in England previously, was the right thing to do, even if he hadn't been ordered by Control to do it.

Answer: Liz Gold, Alec Leamas' former co-worker at the library

Liz had been invited to visit East Germany as part of an exchange between the British Communist Party and the East German Communist Party. She had no idea that she was going to be called as a witness in a secret espionage trial, or that she would be used by Mundt to discredit Leamas.

However, George Smiley and Peter Guillam had made sure that Liz would unknowingly give evidence that would impeach Leamas' credibility.

Answer: Get the East Germans to execute Fiedler, because he was close to finding the Circus' double agent

Leamas realized that he had never known the entire plan, which was to discredit the honorable Fiedler and cause his execution because he was getting too close to finding out the truth: that Mundt was secretly a British double agent reporting to George Smiley and Peter Guillam. Although Guillam said in "Call from the Dead" that Mundt had avoided capture and escaped from England, he really had not.

Control and Smiley had come up with this plan specifically to protect Mundt, but it only would work if Leamas and Liz Gold didn't know anything about it; they had to side with Fiedler.

Answer: They were killed by East German guards at the Berlin Wall

After the operation, Leamas was promised safe conduct to the West by Mundt. Over Mundt's objections, he insisted on bringing Liz back with him. As they were climbing the Berlin Wall, with Smiley waiting on the other side to take them back to England, Liz was suddenly killed by East German snipers.

It was never revealed whether Mundt, a known anti-Semite, had Liz shot on his own or whether Control ordered her death because she knew too much. Leamas, who had already cleared the top of the Wall, climbed back down on the Eastern side to be with Liz's dead body and was also killed by the snipers - which brought him "in from the cold."