Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy/Smiley’s People (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: John le Carre
- First Published: 1974
- Type of Work: Espionage
- Time of Work: Early and mid-1970’s, during the Cold War
- Setting: London, Paris, Hamburg, and Berne
- Principal Characters: George Smiley, Karla, Bill Haydon, Jim Priddeaux, Peter Guillam
- Genres: Long fiction, Suspense, Spy fiction
- Subjects: 1970’s, Politics, Socialism, Europe or Europeans, Betrayal, England or English people, Good and evil, Mysteries, Adventure, Russia or Russian people, Defectors, Intelligence service, Secret service
- Locales: England
The Novels
Together with The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), these novels form the Quest for Karla trilogy, which pits the elderly British superspy George Smiley against the Russian master spy and head of the Thirteenth Directorate, Karla. Karla’s agent in place (“mole”) in the British Secret Service (called the Circus after its central offices at Cambridge Circus) is Bill Haydon, Smiley’s lifelong colleague and friend; Karla’s one humanizing flaw, his love for his daughter, is not safe from Smiley’s probes and eventuates in his downfall. Tinker, Tailor,...
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