John le Carré

David Cornwell worked for MI5 and then MI6 in the 1950s and early 1960s, writing his first novels as John le Carré while still an intelligence officer in Bonn. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) let him leave the service, and the tired, morally compromised spies of his books, George Smiley above all, came straight from what he had seen of the trade.