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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

George drinks his way through three interviews while piecing together the story that General Vladimir died trying to get to him. Bernard Hepton and Beryl Reid reprise their roles from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy as Toby Esterhase and Connie Sachs, respectively, and then Smiley ventures overseas in search of Otto Leipzig and the Ginger Pig's confession. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 23, 2015 - 8 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

Smiley springs his trap and then goes about picking up the pieces and putting The Circus back together. Poor George! Life is such a puzzle to you, isn't it? - Lady Ann
posted by carsonb on Apr 2, 2015 - 18 comments

With a new light cast on the aftermath of Operation Testify—who told Jim Prideaux to forget it, man... forget it! and move on with his post-Circus life—George Smiley knows who in the Merlin/Witchcraft circle to approach first. But before he heads down that path, a bit of follow-up is in order with old-boy lamplighter and drunkard footie newsman Jerry Westerby. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Mar 26, 2015 - 21 comments

George Smiley conducts two interviews, first with old hand Sam Collins, the duty officer on the night Jim Prideaux was shot, then with Prideaux himself. Between the two testimonies a clearer picture is painted of the events of that night, the fateful, failed Operation Testify, as well as its fallout.
posted by carsonb on Mar 19, 2015 - 22 comments

In search of more information about Operation Testify, George sends Peter back to The Circus for the archived file. Waylaid mid-operation by the three of them and Alleline, Peter is read in on and then interrogated about some ultra-ultra-sensitive Witchcraft material. Patrick Stewart makes a brief, silent, and rather intense appearance during Smiley's relation to Guillam of the time in Delhi when he met Karla in the flesh. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Mar 12, 2015 - 12 comments

Smiley sends Guillam to The Circus headquarters at London Station to covertly follow up on Ricky Tarr's story, while he visits Oxford to pick the brain of former Head of Research Connie Sachs. Connections begin to appear as they compare notes, and George fills Peter in on Merlin, Witchcraft, and Percy Alleline's insufferable angling for Control's chair. There are three of them, and Alleline. Control's words. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Mar 4, 2015 - 7 comments

Four men in a room quickly filling with smoke: George Smiley, newly un-retired right-hand man to The Circus chief, Peter Guillam, disgraced head Scalphunter for The Circus, Oliver Lacon, Intelligence Service overseer, and Ricky Tarr, officially absent without leave, on the Wanted list, recently resurfaced Circus spook extraordinaire. Ricky has a story he thinks might change all their lives. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Feb 26, 2015 - 3 comments

Two to six men in a room filled or quickly filling with smoke. There is terse, slow conversation, interrogations mostly, punctuated by short, uneventful drives on the streets of Cold War-era London. Spies! George Smiley (ret.), played elderly and formidable and ironically reticent by Sir Alec Guinness, looms and frowns at the goings-on and pieces together the legend of a mole, right at the top of The Circus. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Feb 19, 2015 - 15 comments