In these three masterly novels John le Carre brings to thrilling life the shadowy battlegrounds of the Cold War
- a war of ambiguous victories & hidden defeats orchestrated from the corridors of the Circus & Moscow Centre & staffed by an army of moles & lamplighters scalphunters & pavement artists. Stalking each other through this twilight landscape are the incomparable George Smiley & his ruthless opposite number codenamed Karla the Soviet case officer who has been slowly masterminding the Circuss ruin. Their extraordinary duel not only raised the spy novel to new heights of realism & complexity it also constitutes one of the major triumphs of contemporary fiction confirming John le Carre as a profound chronicler of the post-war world & a novelist of unfailing humanity.