[The Little Drummer Girl] is the third Le Carré novel which is exceedingly well-timed. The first was The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which defined the Cold War with an intensity and adult perception which came as a relief after the lockjawed propaganda of the politicians and the comic-cuts cartoons of popular fiction.

Then came Smiley who tinkered his honourable way through people in institutions so very like the institutions most of us have suffered through. Whether it was school, university, the factory, the civil service, Smiley talked about the JOB. Moles were found in every cranny; spooks in every nook.

Now, with The Little Drummer Girl, Le Carré has slipped away from Smiley and pitched camp in the Middle East.

It is the Middle East of espionage: in that sense Le Carré is taking his life-belt with him. It is also the Middle East of...