Book Details

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974) is a thriller written by John Le Carré. It is the first entry in a series of books called the Karla trilogy, followed by The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) and Smiley's People (1979). The trilogy features an aging spy named George Smiley and has been adapted into television and radio shows as well as a feature film. 

Author Details

John Le Carré is the pen name of David John Moore Cornwell, a seminal figure in the spy fiction genre. Le Carré's novels use his real-life experience as an MI5 intelligence officer, lending his work the credibility of experience. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) gained widespread popularity and is still considered one of the top spy novels. It also introduced a mainstream audience to his recurring character, George Smiley, in a supporting role.

Film & Television Adaptations

Many of Le Carré's novels have been adapted, including notable adaptations of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In 1979, just five years after the book's publication, the BBC produced a seven-part series adapting the novel and starring Alec Guiness. In 2011, the novel was adapted again, this time into a movie starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley. The 2011 movie won several BAFTA and Empire awards, and an Oscar nomination for Gary Oldman for Best Actor.

This study guide refers to the 2018 Penguin Classics e-book edition.

Plot Summary

In the aftermath of a failed mission in Czechoslovakia, George Smiley is forced to retire early from the British intelligence service, known as the Circus. The agent involved in the failed Operation Testify, Jim Prideaux, was shot, captured, and tortured before being sent back to Britain. He leaves the Circus behind and takes a job as a schoolteacher.

Operation Testify was devised by the former head of the Circus, a man known as Control, to uncover a a mole working in British intelligence. Before he died, Control enlisted Prideaux and gave him a list of suspects, including Smiley, Percy Alleline, Toby Esterhase, Roy Bland, and Bill Haydon. He assigned each of these men a codename taken from a children’s nursery rhyme. Since Smiley no longer works for the Circus, Oliver Lacon recruits him to discover the identity of the mole and finish Control’s operation.

Smiley works with his former protégé, Peter Guilliam, to find the mole. He suspects that a Russian spymaster named Karla is behind the scheme. He orders Guilliam to steal important files from the Circus and visits old friends who were also fired after Operation Testify’s failure. One of these friends, Connie Sachs, is a former analyst who was told to forget her suspicions regarding a Russian agent named Polyakov working in London.

Smiley learns about Operation Witchcraft, a secretive Circus operation run by Alleline, Bland, Esterhase, and Haydon. Operation Witchcraft works with high-placed Russian sources who are supposedly funneling intelligence through Alleline. Control never trusted Operation Witchcraft, but the information quality was enough to secure Alleline the top job at the Circus.

Smiley deduces that Polyakov is Operation Witchcraft's source, meeting with Alleline, Bland, Esterhase, or Haydon in a secret London house paid for by the Circus. However, Smiley believes that Operation Witchcraft is a deception. The Russians pass along a controlled supply of interesting but unthreatening information while receiving actual important intelligence from the mole. Smiley believes that Karla and the mole have tricked the Circus into thinking the Operation Witchcraft material is relevant to provide the perfect cover story for the mole’s own treason.

Smiley’s investigations uncover numerous reports of Haydon’s strange behavior on the night of Operation Testify. He is also aware of rumors that Haydon had an affair with Smiley’s estranged wife, Ann. On the night of Operation Testify, Haydon was with Ann. However, he arrived at the Circus amid the emergency and knew more than he possibly could have known at that point. Smiley realizes that Operation Testify was a trap set by the mole and the Soviet intelligence operatives to ambush Prideaux and protect the mole's identity.

Smiley reveals the mole’s plots to Esterhase and compels Esterhase to tell him the location of the secret London meeting place. Using Tarr to cause a distraction, Smiley forces a meeting between Polyakov and the mole. He waits in the house and overhears Polyakov and Haydon talking, proving that Haydon is the mole. Haydon is arrested and interrogated but will only speak to Smiley, telling him that he became disillusioned with the capitalist West and decided to betray his country.

Haydon is set to be sent back to Russia but dies mysteriously on the eve of his departure. Though the identity of the killer is not known, Prideaux is the clear suspect. Smiley takes temporary charge of the Circus and is given the task of repairing the intelligence networks which have been exposed by Haydon’s treason. Prideaux returns to his job as a schoolteacher.