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Nick Harkaway's bestselling take on George Smiley is back, and this time the iconic spy is on the trail of a traitor right at the top of American 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 formidable 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 daring but fragile Circus spy presently in Leningrad without the protection of diplomatic cover, must push his luck to breaking point to 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, the latest novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Nick Harkaway, is a gripping return to the shadow world of John le Carré. Elegant, tense and morally intricate, it is an extraordinary and timely continuation of one of literature's greatest espionage legacies -- and a landmark work of modern spy fiction.

‘Smiley is back at the Circus in the safest of hands’
RICHARD OSMAN

‘Note-perfect’
MICK HERRON

‘Le Carre’s legacy is in good hands – Smiley is back with a vengeance!’
IAN RANKIN

© Nick Harkaway 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026