tinker tailor soldier spy a george smiley novel

The reins are passed into the hands of wildly ambitious Percy Alleline, as well as his vain sidekick Toby Esterase, the stolid Roy Bland and flamboyant intellectual Bill Haydon. An agent Control sent out to meet a potential defector in Czechoslovakia, a general who was supposed to know the identity of a double-agent in London, was caught and shot by Russians.Īs a result, Control is deemed past it. Smiley’s retired … Or rather he’s been forced out from the Circus after a botched mission that cost his dying mentor Control his post. The year is 1973, the height of the Cold War. His hero, the outwardly bland George Smiley, is the antithesis to James Bond: his Circus is more populated with ambitious pen-pushers and analysts than dazzling charmers with a licence to kill. Luckily Le Carré had prepared me for terror and intimidation! Still, it terrified me and intensified my respect for Le Carré (the pen name of Bernard Cornwell).Īs a linguist and former intelligence agent whose cover was blown by famous double agent Kim Philby, Le Carré knew his subject matter with an intimacy that spills from the pages. Soon after I had my first experience with Eastern Germany, en route to West Berlin. I watched the old BBC version with Sir Alec Guinness in my childhood.

Tinker tailor soldier spy a george smiley novel