The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Alec Leamas is the protagonist of the novel, and almost every chapter follows his perspective. He is a British Intelligence agent responsible for running spies in enemy territory, East Berlin, and he has a successful record in both WWII and the Cold War. However, at the start of the novel, he is past his prime, bearing the scars from a life in the shadows. His physique remains impressive in middle age, with an “attractive face, muscular” (18), and a bearing that would get him “the best table” at a Berlin nightclub (19), if not a posh London club. He shows very little of his inner life to others, coming across as gruff, rude, and deeply cynical. Even before the he deliberately destroys his professional career, he is a heavy drinker, and Control surmises that Leamas has grown “tired of spying” (24), with a deep desire “never […] to cause suffering again” on account of all he has experienced in the field (26).

The suggestion that Leamas has lost his edge points to his defining quality, his pride. Having lost any faith that his work as a spy is serving some kind of higher purpose (if he ever had such faith in the first place), and harboring little affection for the reckless Riemeck, Leamas’s primary