The action takes place between 1974 and 1975.
At the end of "The Mole" George Smiley manages to unmask Bill Haydon, the commander of the London station which was a double agent working for Karla, and is given - temporarily - the direction of Cirque (MI6).
Smiley will then launch an offensive against Karla scale. He asked his team, composed, among others, Connie Sachs (expert analyst of the Soviet Union) and Doc di Salis (expert analyst PRC), to reconsider all files having been "hastily" sorted by Haydon. They discover an investigation of a Laos money laundering; the nature and organization of the latter, particularly complex suggest paw Karla.
Smiley uses Westerby Gerald (Jerry), a former journalist and occasional field agent for the circus, and sends mission to Hong Kong. Westerby's investigation revealed that the Soviet money was paid to a local bank account held by a Drake Ko, a businessman prominent in the island.
But US intelligence interested, too, close to Ko, they suspect drug trafficking; Smiley, and other Westerby will therefore have to play finesse and race against the clock ...
"As a college student" may surprise those who have read "The Mole", the surreal twilight part of this South-East Asia experiencing a "real" ground war is certainly less conducive and can seem less "adequate "the idea that we could make these invisible chessboard battles between spies of the Cold War.
The author portrays the struggle we'll Smiley, not only against Karla, but also against the bureaucracy; it must therefore spare the feelings of the different "factions" of the British intelligence community and do not underestimate the political weight of this "special relationship" between the British and Americans.
The start of the novel is particularly long - Le Carré takes time to work the scene of intrigue and set up (the moist atmosphere of Hong Kong is almost palpable), then gradually develops through the context of scenarios his characters (Cambodian Civil War, Air America) and gives substance to all his characters.
By the end seem well against fast, almost brutal.
As usual, Le Carré tells us the fate of a man, beyond the plot and large-scale challenges of it, will eventually make its own choices and will be broken by the machine he n ' is ultimately an insignificant cog that can be sacrificed.
