{"id":3083,"date":"2026-09-10T19:08:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T19:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/?post_type=_series&#038;p=3083"},"modified":"2026-10-12T13:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T13:58:25","slug":"the-karla-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"_series","link":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/_series\/the-karla-trilogy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Karla Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"et_pb_section_0 et_pb_section et_section_regular et_block_section\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_row_0 et_pb_row et-vb-row--no-module et_block_row\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column_0 et_pb_column et_pb_column_4_4 et-last-child et_block_column et_pb_column_empty et_pb_css_mix_blend_mode_passthrough\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":3550,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"wds_primary_isdb_theme":0,"wds_primary_isdb_agency":0,"wds_primary_isdb_country":0,"wds_primary_isdb_era":0,"footnotes":""},"isdb_theme":[33,30,31,40,34,32,43,42],"isdb_agency":[65],"isdb_country":[79,81,78,95,77],"isdb_era":[],"class_list":["post-3083","_series","type-_series","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","isdb_theme-assassination","isdb_theme-cold-war","isdb_theme-counterintelligence","isdb_theme-covert-operations","isdb_theme-defection","isdb_theme-double-agents","isdb_theme-insider-threats","isdb_theme-intelligence-analysis","isdb_agency-mi6","isdb_country-china","isdb_country-germany","isdb_country-russia","isdb_country-switzerland","isdb_country-united-kingdom"],"acf":{"isdb_series_id":"S0000002","series_subtitle":"","series_primary_creator":3085,"series_additional_creators":"","series_image":3550,"series_status":"Complete","series_number_works":"","series_first_year":1974,"series_final_year":1979,"series_short_description":"George Smiley has spent his career chasing one man: Karla, head of Moscow Centre. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley hunts the Soviet mole at the top of British intelligence. In The Honourable Schoolboy, he rebuilds a broken Service and strikes back through Hong Kong. In Smiley's People, a murdered defector's last message gives him one chance to bring Karla in. Le Carr\u00e9's masterwork, in one volume.","series_full_description":"The Karla Trilogy is John le Carr\u00e9's three-novel account of a long duel between George Smiley of British intelligence and Karla, the Soviet officer who runs his own directorate inside Moscow Centre. The books are written in sequence. Each one opens on the damage left by the one before.\r\n\r\n<em>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/em> (1974) finds Smiley forced out of the Circus after a failed operation in Czechoslovakia. Oliver Lacon of the Cabinet Office brings him back in secret to find a Soviet mole placed at the top of the service years earlier. Smiley works from stolen files, old colleagues and his own memory. The traitor he exposes was recruited and run by Karla, and he is someone Smiley knows well.\r\n\r\n<em>The Honourable Schoolboy<\/em> (1977) puts Smiley in charge of a gutted Circus with almost no staff and no money. He goes back over the intelligence the mole buried and finds a money trail Karla wanted hidden. Jerry Westerby, a reporter and part-time agent, is sent to Hong Kong and across a collapsing Indochina to follow it. The operation works for London. It costs Westerby everything, and the Americans take the prize.\r\n\r\n<em>Smiley's People<\/em> (1979) begins with the murder of an old \u00e9migr\u00e9 agent on Hampstead Heath. Smiley, retired again, is asked to close the file quietly. He follows the dead man's last lead instead, through Hamburg and Switzerland, and finds the one private weakness Karla has. Smiley uses it. The book ends at a crossing point on the Berlin Wall.\r\n\r\nLe Carr\u00e9 served in MI5 and MI6 before the success of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) let him write full time. The mole plot in the first book draws on the Cambridge spy ring, and Kim Philby in particular. Much of the trilogy's jargon, such as \"mole,\" \"lamplighters\" and \"scalphunters,\" came from le Carr\u00e9 and later entered real use.","series_characters":[3081,3691,6752,5904,6866,4511],"series_publishers":[3129],"series_agencies":[65],"series_organizations":"","series_books":[3622,3620,3626],"historical_eras":false,"series_agencies_terms":[65],"series_countries":[77,78,79,81,95],"series_themes":[31,33,30,40,34,43,32,42],"series_adaptations":[{"title":"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy","type":"TV miniseries, BBC Two, 7 parts","year":"1979","based_on_work":"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy","adaptation_notes":"BAFTA TV Award, Best Actor (Guinness, 1980); BAFTA for camerawork (Tony Pierce-Roberts)"},{"title":"Smiley's People","type":"TV miniseries, BBC Two, 6 parts","year":"1982","based_on_work":"Smiley's People","adaptation_notes":"4 BAFTA TV Awards (1983), including Best Actor (Guinness) and Best Actress (Beryl Reid); Peabody Award; 3 Primetime Emmy nominations"},{"title":"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy","type":"Feature film, dir. Tomas Alfredson (Working Title \/ StudioCanal)","year":"2011","based_on_work":"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy","adaptation_notes":"BAFTA, Outstanding British Film; BAFTA, Best Adapted Screenplay; 3 Academy Award nominations (Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score); European Film Awards for score and production design"}],"series_official_website":"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.ca\/books\/392254\/the-karla-trilogy-featuring-george-smiley-by-john-le-carre\/9780143183570","series_sources":null,"series_record_status":"Published","series_verification_status":"Verified","series_editorial_notes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_series\/3083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_series"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/_series"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_series\/3083\/revisions"}],"acf:term":[{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/42"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/32"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/43"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/34"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/40"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/30"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/33"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme\/31"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_country","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country\/95"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_country","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country\/81"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_country","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country\/79"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_country","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country\/78"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_country","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country\/77"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"isdb_agency","href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_agency\/65"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/3626"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/3620"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/3622"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_publishers_\/3129"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/4511"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/6866"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/5904"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/6752"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/3691"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_characters\/3081"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_author\/3085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"isdb_theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_theme?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"isdb_agency","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_agency?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"isdb_country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_country?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"isdb_era","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spyscribe.com\/isdb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/isdb_era?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}