Call for the Dead Author:John Le Carré Call for the Dead is John le Carré's first novel, published in 1961. It introduces George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in a story about East German spies inside Great Britain. It also introduces a recurring fictional version of British Intelligence, called "the Circus" because of its location in Cambridge Circus, t... more »hat is apparently based on MI6.« less