John le Carré, outstanding novelist whose work transcended the spy genre – obituary He transformed espionage fiction in the masterworks The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 14 December 2020 • 9:11am John le Carré, who has died aged 89, was one of the most successful post-war English novelists, and perhaps the finest thriller writer of the 20th century. Le Carré, the pen name adopted by David Cornwell, used his own experience of intelligence work to extend the range of a genre whose heroes, epitomised by James Bond, were principally still romantic figures engaged in a glamorous profession. Le Carré had only contempt for this sleeping-car image of espionage. His spies were weary and fearful men, combatants in a cold and sombre war, his themes those of isolation, betrayal and the clash between the demands of an individual’s conscience and those of an amoral, post-Imperial State.