1/5/195? George Smiley arrives

January 5, 195?.  On this date George Smiley entered the world as John LeCarre's first novel, Call For The Dead, begins.  Smiley was the brilliant operative for a British spy organization called the Circus.  He is a great character, a dedicated man who never seems to fit in anywhere completely; the first sentence tells us his wife has left him, but their off-on relationship distracts him through many books.  In almost every novel he either quits the  Circus, or gets dragged back into it.  Smiley appears as a minor or major character in eight novels, most famously The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.