The Honourable Schoolboy

With a handful of faithful agents, Smiley begins the painful process of reconstructing some kind of intelligence operation that has not been betrayed to Moscow – ‘backbearings’, as the ageing and partially crippled Connie Sachs puts it. What did Karla want information on? What did he want suppressed? It is a trail that leads east, to Cambodia and Laos where the Vietnam War is reaching its predictable, bloody finish; to opium smugglers and Triad gangs in Hong Kong – and to the Honourable Gerald Westerby. Jerry is a journalist and old Eastern hand, both lover and fighter, and a reckless secret agent whom Smiley thinks might find the clue. Smiley knows he is on the track of Karla, but neither tradecraft nor intelligence are the most important skills for negotiating the corridors of Whitehall, and the true enemy is not always on the other side.

John le Carré famously worked for the British Foreign Service himself and wrote his first three novels while a spy. During the 50s and 60s revelations about the ‘Cambridge Five’ KGB agents had shocked the country and shaken the security services. In his ‘Karla Trilogy’, le Carré created a perfectly nuanced exploration of treachery and moral ambiguity that made the novels not only thrilling espionage stories, but also works of literature that repay reading again and again.

Also available in the series:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Smiley's People