John le Carre · 1974 · thriller

John le Carre's 1974 novel. A botched operation in Czechoslovakia brings down the head of the Service, and George Smiley is pulled out of forced retirement to find the Soviet mole who has been sitting at the top of the Circus for years. The work is done in reading rooms and safe houses, from files nobody is supposed to still have.

1. 1
   London

   At Cambridge Circus, Control's last private operation has ended in disaster and cost him his job and Smiley his - and Smiley is quietly brought back by the Cabinet Office to find the mole that Control died certain was there.

2. 2
   Brno

   The disaster was in Czechoslovakia, where Jim Prideaux went to meet a general who did not exist and was shot in the back in a wood outside Brno - an operation the other side knew about before he crossed the border.

3. 3
   Hong Kong

   In Hong Kong the scalphunter Ricki Tarr falls for a Soviet courier's wife who offers to trade what she knows for asylum - and his signal to London is buried by someone senior, the first hard evidence Control was right.

4. 4
   Lisbon

   Tarr goes to ground in Lisbon while Smiley works back through the files - and the mole is finally drawn out to a safe house in London by the promise of the very Russian who has been running him all along.