George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realized characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin. Smiley has come out of retirement. Moscow has infiltrated a mole into the Circus and its more than likely the perpetrator is Karla, his old adversary. And when Smiley is offered the job of catching the mole, it becomes a long and bitter battle of deception and treachery.