I talked about Le Carre’s masterful subtlety in my review of ‘The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,’ where his use of a limited perspective combined with the many clues scattered through the novel and his fine touch with a pen created an incredible sense of discovery in the reader. He has this special ability to craft a narrative based around what he leaves out, as much as what he leaves in, that sets him apart from other novelists. Like a painter, he uses the negative space left by the eliminated possibilities to guide the reader to their own discoveries. Somehow, he’s able to make you feel like you’re the one figuring out the plot as it goes along, rather than just a bystander watching things play out. Many try to achieve this, but few succeed so spectacularly.

He takes that marvelous feeling to a new level in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It is a longer read with a much more intricate web of espionage to unravel, and rightfully so, because without this level of complexity, it would be hard to find the inciting circumstances believable. Where another author might seem ridiculous in asserting that a mole could penetrate the highest levels of British intelligence, Le Carre makes it plenty believable, with this being one of the most realistic pieces of fiction I’ve ever read. There’s not a single moment for doubt to creep in, no sense that the characters or the plot or the atmosphere is ever overdone, underbaked, or misrepresentative. If I have one complaint about this masterpiece, it’s that you have to read it with notepad in hand, and a PhD in a related field probably wouldn’t hurt either.

I’m not even sure I can faithfully summarize the plot for you. This is one of those incredibly deep books that thoroughly resists being summarized beyond what has already been stated for me in the blurb. I’ll try my best though.

George Smiley is a retired member of the Circus, the English intelligence agency that has given him the boot after his closest ally Control … well, lost control of the agency. Percy Alleline, one of his underlings, managed to find a source of intelligence far more alluring than anything Control ever unearthed, and leveraged that power to become the front man in the Circus along with others who backed him: Bill Haydon, Toby Esterhase, and Roy Bland. As Control discovered in his final, dreary days at the Circus, one of these four men is a mole. An agent working for Soviet Intelligence, buried deep within their ranks that has turned the Circus ‘inside out’ as they say. Smiley is brought back into action to find this mole, a task that will require every bit of his cunning, and the iron gut to face brutal truths about his friends. Delivered in a series of interviews, flashbacks, and fact-finding missions, plot points accrue gradually as George Smiley slowly but steadily unravels a most delicate deception.

As far as spy novels go, I think this must just be the best one. Period. With three separate adaptations, one for film, one for TV, and one for radio, this story has wormed its way into every type of media, and made an impact on all the stories that have come after it whether you know it or not. Even actual intelligence agencies have since adopted the terminology used in this novel. The word ‘mole’ itself didn’t have a place in our world, fictional or otherwise, until this novel was written. If you’re up for the challenge (and likely multiple rereads to really get it) ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ has no equal as far as I’m concerned.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley