John le Carre

British agent George Smiley hunts for a mole in the Secret Service and begins his epic game of international chess with his Soviet counterpart, an agent named Karla.

From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues...

Harry, an ex-con turned tailor to the rich and infamous, is married to Louisa, who is smart and sexy. Andy is a suave and ruthless British spy, who had best come through this time, who forces Harry to eavesdrop on the powerful politicians he clothes. Harry's talent for storytelling is not only taken as truth, but sets off a series of events that threatens to destroy everything most important in his life.

In a remote area of Northern Kenya, activist Tessa Quayle is found brutally murdered. Tessa's companion, a doctor, appears to have fled the scene, and all the evidence points to a crime of passion. Members of the British High Commission in Nairobi assume that Tessa's widower, their mild-mannered and unambitious colleague Justin Quayle, will leave the matter to them. Haunted by remorse and jarred by rumors of his late wife's infidelities, Quayle surprises...

Some say George Smiley is in innocent retirement. Others say he was sacked after the Czech scandal. But all agree that nobody ever leaves the 'Circus' without some unfinished business. Brought out of retirement to trace an enemy infiltrator in the department where he was once the prize employee, the shy and retiring master of espionage moves forwards to investigate and finds himself going backwards over very old ground.

The bespectacled spymaster is once more called from retirement to come to the aid of the 'Circus'--and he returns with a vengeance. The murder of an emigre Soviet General who was also a British agent, sends him digging into the past on a twisted trail across Europe that moves, inexorably, towards a final showdown with his old adversary, Karla of Moscow Centre.