1/28/1967 Dare I Weep? Dare I Mourn?

January 28, 1967.  Master spy novelist John LeCarre has written less than a handful of short stories, but one appeared in the Saturday Evening Post issue with this date.  "Dare I Weep?  Dare I  Mourn" is the tale of a West German grocer named Koorp who has the odd job of getting his father's corpse over the border from East Berlin.  It turns out to be a lot more complicated than it appears...

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.