Samuel Fennan, an employee at the British Foreign Office, commits suicide at home after being questioned by the Secret Service following an anonymous denounciation. George Smiley, in charge of the investigation, does not understand this reaction. Their conversation had been cordial, and Smiley had reassured Fennan nothing was held against him. While is offering his condolences to the widow, and trying to understand Samuel's gesture, the phone rings, and he intercepts a call for Fennan. A strange and for George Smiley a suspicious call.

Call for the dead is Smiley's first appearance, in a novel that is more of a classic crime novel than a spy novel. Indeed, more than a complex manipulation, or a remote chess game, we are witnessing here a police investigation, for which Smiley is assisted by a policeman. Admittedly, it turns out that the victims and the culprits are spies, but the starting point is very classic and the emphasis is on the false leads and on the clues that allow us to glimpse, little little by little, the truth.

Also interesting to see these first steps of the author who will become a master, to see his characters born, to see the first frictions between a George Smiley who, although ready to sacrifice a lot to efficiency, cares about the human factor, and a hierarchy who is only worried about the political repercussions on his career. Interesting to see the establishment of a whole mechanism of espionage, which will reach its peak in the following novels.

Admittedly, it is not the best Smiley, but Call for the death is not only worth rediscovering it makes me want to resume rediscovering the Smiley's series in order. ( )