Alf0nse-
Well you live and learn…ok it’s number 3
But I found it a good place to startLate to the party, but yes, it's a good place to start, because the first two are really not good. They're interesting as a history of his developing skills as a writer or if you're the kind of nerd who needs to know every detail of the world an author creates, otherwise they read like some tweedy Agatha Christie imitator decided to branch out into spy novels (and I don't think much of Agatha Christie). The step change in "The spy who came in from the cold" is a big one. Graham Greene said it was the best spy story he had ever read, which is not hugely surprising since it has always seemed to me a book strongly influenced by Greene.
Most of his books between that and A Perfect Spy, inclusive, I rate highly. After that he became increasingly overtly a political campaigner and while I liked his politics I didn't think so much of the books. Ironically, his earlier - more morally ambiguous - books may have had more political impact; they did a lot to jade the public's view of the security services and I'm sure his old employers came to regret giving him the OK to publish.
A Legacy of Spies, one of his last books and the last Smiley book, isn't political but I wish I hadn't read it. He decided to tie up all the loose ends from the Smiley series and explain everything that ever happened. There doesn't seem to be much of a point to the book apart from the author revisiting old ground. Ends amateurishly and pointlessly. Possibly a symptom of old age, who can say. But I wouldn't recommend it unless you're one of those completist nerds.
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itsbruce
Call for the Dead was his first, and no 1 in the Smiley series.
@ltc if you want to test the water before jumping into a series, any of the stand alone novels will suffice, The Little Drummer Girl is, so far (100 pages in) very good.