A #1 New York Times Best-Seller

This is the first book of John le Carre's 'Karla trilogy' and features British master spy George Smiley. Somewhere at the very highest levels of British Intelligence there stands a double agent, a 'mole,' implanted deep in its fabric, perhaps decades ago, by Moscow Centre. He can only be one of five men--brilliant, complicated men, proven in action--who have worked closely together through the years, respecting and depending on each other, despite the central imperative of their profession to trust no one. Of these five, it is George Smiley, perhaps the most brilliant and complicated of them all, who is tapped to dig out the mole and destroy him. And so Smiley embarks on his blind night walk, retracing path after path into his own past--its aliases, covers, sleights of hand--burrowing into the dust of unresolved episodes. John le Carre's classic novels deftly navigate readers through the intricate shadow worlds of international espionage with unsurpassed skill and knowledge and have earned him--and his hero, British Secret Service agent George Smiley--unprecedented worldwide acclaim.