Peter Guillam, devoted colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as the Circus, has retired to his family farm on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old service summons him to London.

The reason? His past from the Cold War era has come back to haunt him. The intelligence-gathering espionage operations, once the pride of London's secret services, will now be scrutinized by a generation that has no memory of the Cold War. Someone will be forced to pay for the innocent blood that was once spilled in the name of the greater good.

Masterfully weaving the past with the present so that each tells its own story, John le Carré offers us a novel of exceptional and timeless quality.