John le Carré's George Smiley series was written in response to Ian Flemming's James Bond. While Bond was all about larger than life villians, cool gadgets and seducing women, le Carré's novels were a more gritty, realistic, and bleak look at the life of a spy.

The previous entry in the series, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, is often named as the greatest spy novel of all time. Following its publication however,the author felt it wasn't quite bleak enough, and this novel is the end result.

The story deals with a small and increasingly irrelevant UK agency known only as The Department trying to resume proper spywork to boost their own standing. The book is filled with ineptitude, risky decisions and a lack of cooperation with MI6 (or the Circus as it's known in these novels). I enjoyed this book much more once I realised it was a satire of sorts.