The Secret Pilgrim: A George Smiley Novel (George Smiley Novels)

“There’s a price to pay, and the price does tend to be oneself.”
 

To the young trainees at Sarratt, George Smiley is “A Legend of the Service.” To Ned, however, he is something even more. Decades earlier—before a mole nearly destroyed the Circus and well before the Cold War yielded to glasnost—Smiley rescued Ned from disgrace and gently mentored him through a long and respectable career. Now, as he listens to Smiley address a new generation of spies, Ned ponders his own clandestine life, the unruly passions and personalities he’s encountered—and the doubts he’s kept locked away.

 

Brilliantly charting the collision between global politics and individual frailties, The Secret Pilgrim is quintessential John le Carré—thoughtful, prescient, and wholly unforgettable.