By 1986, when A Perfect Spy hit the Times list, John le Carré had already established himself in two distinct, not intrinsically related ways. His earlier novels, especially The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), had secured his place among those writers, like Harold Robbins and Herman Wouk, who could be counted on to produce best sellers with a regularity guaranteed to warm the coldest publisher’s stony little heart. Unlike Robbins and Wouk, however, le Carré worked in an easily identified genre, the spy novel, and had so managed to elevate its