Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a spy novel by the British writer John le Carre, published in 1974. It follows the ageing spymaster George Smiley as he hunts for a Soviet agent near the top of British intelligence.

Smiley is brought out of retirement and given one job: there is a mole inside the Circus, the British secret service, and he has to work out which of his senior colleagues it is. He is given almost nothing else to go on, and the men he is asked to investigate understand the operation better than he does.

The work is done through old files and long conversations rather than a chase, as Smiley recalls the operations that may hide the answer and interviews the people who were involved in them. The novel is as much about the institution and its habits as about the hunt for the mole.

Le Carre had worked for British intelligence himself, and the book reflects the period of his own service and the known defections of the era, including that of Kim Philby. It was adapted into a film in 2011.