As an espionage story, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and all of le Carre's works, with the possible exception of The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971), belong to the tradition of Somerset Maugham, Authur Conan Doyle, and especially Graham Greene; although he has created a more restless, ambiguous hero. In the literary world, he has echoes of Balzac, Stendhal, Dickens (especially Bleak House), and Henry James. Joseph Conrad is also one of his masters, especially in his later works.