smiley, george (fictitious character)

"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 Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinised under disturbing criteria by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications."--Providedby publisher.

British intelligence agent George Smiley and his mortal enemy Karla, a Soviet agent, clash in a final confrontation.

George Smiley, an agent at the very highest level of British Intelligence, enters the twilight world of espionage and his own past when he is assigned to discover which of his four closest colleagues is a double agent.

In an attempt to recover from the devastating effects of having uncovered a double agent in a high position in its organization, the British Secret Service carries out an elaborate espionage scheme in the Far East.