‘The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life,’ by John le Carré

The son of a con man, a former low-ranking member of British Intelligence and perhaps the premier novelist of espionage in the past half century, the man born David Cornwell has spent his life trading in obfuscation and make-believe.

First comes the imagining, then the search for the reality.

Even though members of the public and the press presume he has access to some treasure trove of super-secret tradecraft, le Carré has always taken pains to downplay his reputation as a firsthand master of espionage.

While he admits that there are aspects of his three years as a young diplomat stationed at the British Embassy in Bonn that he can’t or won’t discuss, he makes clear that his job consisted largely of overseeing the entertainment of visiting dignitaries and escorting groups of Germans to London for cultural exchange.

Once the phenomenal success of “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” crests, however, le Carré finds that he can enjoy access to a more elevated range of celebrities, especially as the Cold War wanes.

In “The Pigeon Tunnel,” le Carré describes these encounters with his characteristic eye for the telling detail, capturing some of the ambiguities inherent in these outsize personalities.

From the time of his literary breakthrough, le Carré has enjoyed interest from television and film productions, and “The Pigeon Tunnel” offers glimpses of how heady — and frustrating — that attention can be.

Le Carré’s friend Alec Guinness, George Smiley in the BBC versions of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “Smiley’s People,” receives a fond remembrance as both a brilliant actor and a dependable professional.

Stanley Kubrick, attempting to secure the rights to “A Perfect Spy” under an assumed name, makes a cameo appearance, as does an elderly, half-blind Fritz Lang, confident that he still wields enough power in Hollywood to green-light a screen adaptation of “A Murder of Quality,” le Carré’s slight second novel.

Ronnie Cornwell is a monster, but a charming one, endlessly self-confident, capable of grand bouts of self-delusion, inspiring loyalty even from those he has harmed the most.

The title of this memoir comes from le Carré’s recollection of a shooting range in Monte Carlo, where birds captured on the casino roof were sent down a pitch-dark tunnel, emerging into the Mediterranean sunlight, where they would promptly encounter men with shotguns.