Paris, London, Germany, and Switzerland are the settings for a tale of espionage in which a final, conclusive confrontation takes place between George Smiley and his Russian adversary, Karla. In London at dead of night, an old spy (considered senile by some) is shot in the fact at point-blank range. George Smiley is officially retires, but he is summoned by the news. Lured back to active service, Smiley skillfully maneuvers his people into crisscrossing...

A British spy's mission is to get intelligence from East Germany, but when he is caught the intelligence department abandons him to his fate.

"Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George...