Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Audio Cassette Unabridged)

A double-agent is operating at the highest levels of British Intelligence. George Smiley is assigned the task of finding the "mole" and destroying him.
 
Annotation:
The quintessential Cold War thriller, John LeCarre's TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY introduced the term "mole"--meaning a spy who has burrowed so deeply into his cover identity that it's nearly impossible to dig him out and expose him--into common parlance. In fact, LeCarre says, British intelligence began using the term after their operatives read this novel. The book launches a new sequence in LeCarre's series about British Intelligence (aka the "Circus"), in which British spymaster George Smiley prepares to confront Karla, his opposite number in the KGB. ||Two years ago, the catastrophic failure of a mission in Czechoslovakia and a power struggle in the Circus led to Smiley's dismissal from British Intelligence, and to a new administration of ambitious men too blind to see the obvious: that there is a mole in their midst. But new rumors and restlessness among several of Smiley's former colleagues draw Smiley back into the business to head up a clandestine investigation into the rotten heart of the Circus. TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY is a thinking person's spy novel. Rather than relying on over-the-top gunplay and fancy gadgetry, operatives gather intelligence by conducting and overhearing key conversations, sifting through documents, and, most importantly, carefully, logically piecing together bits of information. Tension builds gradually, until the thrilling and entirely rewarding climax and surprisingly poignant dénouement.