I think this may be his first novel (see 447); I have read it before but always enjoy it.
The plot is as described above, although with several twists; in this it is the wife who is the spy, and her husband has colluded in a deliberately minor way, and denounces himself in order to be caught, but is murdered by his East German spymasters before he succeeds.
It is the introduction to George Smiley, and he is as sardonic (I think that is the word) in this as ever (no sardonic is not the word I meant, maybe retiring and self effacing are).
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