FanFare

As the terrorist threat increases, PS David Budd strives to prevent the home secretary Julia Montague from falling victim to an assassination plot. [more inside]
posted by Stark on Oct 3, 2018 - 1 comment

Geoffrey Wellingham is kidnapped in Brussels. Complicating matters, in his office is a paper detailing co-operation between the SIS and South African intelligence. Against orders from Peele, Burnside dispatches both Sandbaggers to Belgium to try and track him down. Despite both Sandbaggers being on station, most deem it to be a futile operation given the past history of hostages being murdered. [more inside]
posted by Grimgrin on Apr 15, 2016 - 7 comments

The Ministry of Defence asks the SIS to send a diver to investigate a Russian merchant ship that they suspect has been outfitted to launch espionage operations against NATO and French naval bases. Sir Geoffrey Wellingham asks the SIS to organize a coup in the middle east. A Russian defector walks into the British embassy in Ankara. Dickens, Caine, and Burnside are left with very little time to sort through murky and contradictory information about internal and external plots. [more inside]
posted by Grimgrin on Mar 18, 2016 - 6 comments

Would anyone here be up for re-watching "The Sandbaggers"? [more inside]
posted by Grimgrin on Feb 13, 2016 - 10 comments

The green light is given, and Esterhase's team moves in on Grigoriev. Will he help them unlock Karla's secret? Can George finally bring down his nemesis and redeem his career, his Western values, his very being? This is George Smiley's last chapter. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on May 15, 2015 - 3 comments

George Smiley finally has the whole story, and now must work to put a plan in place. Circus Chief Saul Enderby takes Maude for a spin around the "garden," earning his cold shoulder from Part 4 and blessing him with his totally-deniable approval of the plan to snare Karla (as well as free access to the Reptile Fund). Commence file-digging with Peter Guillam, target-shadowing with Toby Esterhase, and totally ignoring Oliver Lacon at dinner. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on May 7, 2015 - 6 comments

Sleepless and relentless, Smiley races across West Germany and finally tracks down Otto Leipzig. He's still a step behind Karla for now, but with a flurry of aliases and feints and a little—OK a lot of help from Peter Guillam (Michael Byrne) all of the bits scattered by the death of General Vladimir are finally being swept up into one place. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 30, 2015 - 12 comments

Straight from the briefing with Lacon, Strickland, and Mostyn, George steps out onto the Heath in the light of day and attempts to reconstruct the General's movements from the night before. Then, from the week before. He had two proofs. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 16, 2015 - 21 comments

George Smiley is once again retired from The Circus, living peacefully in his Bywater Street home. But a letter from Paris sets in motion a chain of events that, once again, calls George back into the game. If a rogue elephant... charges at me out of the thicket of my past and gives me a second shot at it, I intend to shoot it dead—but with the minimum of force. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 9, 2015 - 12 comments