The Taper Man
by Nick Harkaway· 2026
Nick Harkaway returns to the world of George Smiley in this espionage thriller, which finds the agent on the trail of a traitor in the heart of US intelligence.
It's 1965, and the world lives on a knife edge. After the nuclear standoff in Cuba, and with Vietnam even now becoming a major conflict zone, the Cold War is colder than ever. The Circus, home of British intelligence, has one clandestine asset in Moscow: a senior officer in the Red Army who is privy to deep Soviet secrets. But when a British agent is shot on a routine visit to Helsinki, George Smiley uncovers a counter-intelligence operation which puts all that in jeopardy.
The trail leads not to Berlin or Vienna but to Los Angeles, where Smiley's nemesis, the Russian master spy known only as Karla, may have a long-term, low profile agent - a Taper Man - poised to expose London's man in Moscow.
Hunting the traitor in the heart of US intelligence, Smiley must reckon with American's stark internal divisions over race, patriotism and belonging as he tries to find an answer to the present crisis in the secrets of the past. Meanwhile Roy Bland, a Circus spy presently in Leningrad without the protection of diplomatic cover, must reveal the Russian end of the operation and rescue a defector whose time is running out - and get Smiley the last piece of Karla’s puzzle.
The Taper Man is a return to the world of John le Carré.
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Nick Harkaway returns to the world of George Smiley in this espionage thriller, which finds the agent on the trail of a traitor in the heart of US intelligence. It's 1965, and the world lives on a knife edge. After the nuclear standoff in Cuba, and with Vietnam even now becoming a major conflict zone, the Cold War is colder than ever. The Circus, home of British intelligence, has one clandestine asset in Moscow: a senior officer in the Red Army who is privy to deep Soviet secrets. But when a British agent is shot on a routine visit to Helsinki, George Smiley uncovers a counter-intelligence operation which puts all that in jeopardy. The trail leads not to Berlin or Vienna but to Los Angeles, where Smiley's nemesis, the Russian master spy known only as Karla, may have a long-term, low profile agent - a Taper Man - poised to expose London's man in Moscow. Hunting the traitor in the heart of US intelligence, Smiley must reckon with American's stark internal divisions over race, patriotism and belonging as he tries to find an answer to the present crisis in the secrets of the past. Meanwhile Roy Bland, a Circus spy presently in Leningrad without the protection of diplomatic cover, must reveal the Russian end of the operation and rescue a defector whose time is running out - and get Smiley the last piece of Karla’s puzzle. The Taper Man is a return to the world of John le Carré.