Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

First published in 1974, this novel is set in the British Secret Intelligence Service, called the Circus, after a botched Central European operation. George Smiley, forced into retirement, is brought back to hunt a Soviet mole among the senior men who now run the service, figures tagged by a children's rhyme as tinker, tailor, soldier, and the rest. He works from files, interrogations, and the memory of his old adversary Karla, while his own marriage and the wreck of the service form the background. The action is London offices, a provincial school, and a few foreign stations. The book is a Cold War mole hunt, not a shoot-out thriller.

Bound in grey buckram cover blocked with a maroon image. Grey endpapers. Grey slipcase.