Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John le Carré

Aug 2006 · George Smiley Book 5 · Penguin Canada

About this ebook

George Smiley’s deadly game Smiley and his people are facing a remarkable challenge: a mole—a Soviet double agent—who has burrowed his way in and up to the highest level of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of their vital operations and their best networks. The mole is one of their own kind. But who is it?

Ratings and reviews

Interesting to finally read this. A great perspective of a time and generation shaped by two world wars and several cultural revolutions.

About the author

JOHN LE CARRÉ was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley’s People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on December 12, 2020.