tinker tailor soldier spy a george smiley novel

He’s an honorable man in a profession that requires treachery, a portly, bookish man with a notoriously unfaithful wife, a slow-moving purposeful man who somehow looks dangerous just polishing his spectacles, a genius at deduction, and a clever interrogator. Smiley has to be one of the greatest fictional characters ever created, staring in the greatest spy novel ever written. Despite his mistreatment, Smiley answers the call of duty and proceeds to spy on his former colleagues, friend and foe alike. But when it becomes clear there’s a double agent high up in the organization, Smiley is summoned and given the assignment to track down the traitor.

When the novel opens, George Smiley, who appears in many of the books le Carré wrote, is unsettled and unsure-having recently been ousted in a purge of the Circus, the British version of the CIA. If you have, it’s well worth a second, third, or fourth look.

I ultimately decided the novel didn’t quite fit the article I was writing, but I couldn’t just let it go. The book, published in 1974, is the most remarkable achievement in le Carré’s remarkable career. I pulled the novel off my bookshelf, thinking I would skim a few pages to refresh my memory, but within minutes I was hooked once again. When Mystery & Suspense magazine asked me to write an article about political mysteries for July posting, I immediately thought of one of my favorite novels, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré, who died in December.

Tinker tailor soldier spy a george smiley novel