Le Carré Uncovered?

October 19: “I never knew my mother till I was twenty-one. I act like a gent but I am wonderfully badly born. My father was a confidence trickster and a jailbird.”

Mighty Melville

October 18: “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”  

Checkmate!

October 17: “Soviet authorities must have been baffled by this kid from Brooklyn who marched toward them inexplicably, like the force of capitalism itself. Worse, he became popular in Russia,…”