"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a spy novel set in the Cold War period of East/West tensions. Set primarily in England and East Germany, it follows the character of Alec Leamas, a British spy who becomes part of an elaborate plot to kill East German spymaster Hans-Dieter Mundt, now the head of the East German spy section. (The term used throughout the book is "The Abteilung" "The Section" in German an "In-Crowd" term used by its own members, the equivalent of "The Circus" used by the British agents for their own service).The novel is a sequel to le Carré's Call for the Dead but it unexpectedly changes a key piece of the prior story. Mundt first appeared there, where he was an operative of the East German service in Britain essentially a thug doing "dirty jobs". In the interval between the two books, he had risen in the world due to his success at counter-espionage against British spies in East Germany."