Book of the Week

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré
Recommended by Andrew Spielmann

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by John Le Carré. It follows a retired senior intelligence officer, George Smiley, trying to uncover a mole at the highest level of British intelligence. He was forced out of ‘the Circus’ (the spy organisation he worked for) after an operation in Czechoslovakia, at the height of the Cold War, went horribly wrong.

However, one year into his retirement he finds out that there is a Soviet spy, who has been rooted deep into British intelligence for decades, working with Smiley’s nemesis in Moscow named Karla. The mole is one of the four most senior officers: Percy Alleline, Roy Bland, Toby Esterhase and Bill Haydon. Smiley investigates and figures out that the senior officers have all been tricked by Karla and the mole, so he sets a trap to catch the traitor.

The overall plot is very interesting and enjoyable.  It is not as action-packed as one might imagine of a typical spy book, but this is reflective of the time at which it is set: the Cold War, which didn't actually involve armies and fighting etc, but information and intelligence gathering. Consequently, the novel instead involves the characters learning and getting to understand things about their enemy through reading, meetings, conversation and memories.

In this way the book naturally becomes very complex when trying to remember all the different operations and people and places that are mentioned, not knowing what will be important later on. For example, early on in the book, there is lengthy section focussing on one meeting with Riki Tarr, a Circus spy lower in the ranks, in which the men just sit and talk about Tarr’s operation and his finding out the existence of a mole in the Circus. Throughout this meeting we hear Smiley’s thoughts and memories about other operations and characters as well, which adds complexity. Le Carré had written previous books about George Smiley and the Circus which probably introduced some of these characters etc, and perhaps this novel would be easier to follow if you have read one or more of them.

A problem with the constant revisiting of memories and flashbacks is that the past becomes blurred with the present: sometimes it is hard for the reader even to know whether an incident is a memory or something actually taking place. In the first half of the book, five chapters are spent with just George Smiley sitting at a table going over some stolen Circus files and records, trying to uncover information about what’s going on inside the Circus. He sometimes reads the files, but then links the information he reads with a memory, which he then recollects in detail, going through all the mole suspects in his mind and analysing his last meeting with each one of them, thinking about their background, all the while returning to his reading of the files.

There are a range of different interesting characters in the novel. They are all fascinating in their own way: the suspects all have their own reasons why they might be the mole, which makes it so much harder to figure out who the traitor is. George Smiley is lonely, living an unhappy retirement, his wife is having affairs, and yet he is still our protagonist, the hero of the story who you eventually come to appreciate as an amazing spy. However another person you are drawn in to like is Bill Haydon, who seems to be a Circus legend, very clever, with a cocky attitude in meetings that you think is due to his intelligence but later learn otherwise.

This novel really explores the politics and society of Britain during the Cold War. I particularly liked the end of the book when the mole is caught and his interrogation uncovers the reasons behind his defection, including that he didn't like Britain’s political position on a global scale.  Overall, I enjoyed the book due to the interesting plot and trying to figure out who the mole is, but it was hard work to really pay attention to all the details of the characters and the different operations.