Book Review : The Looking-Glass War by John Le Carre

This book is the successor to “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and is set at the height of the Cold War.

It would appear that the East Germans are installing Russian missiles at a site near Rostock. Western intelligence would like some confirmation of this and so a ‘friendly’ pilot of a commercial airliner flying from West Germany to Finland “loses his way” in stormy weather and flies over the site, taking some pictures as he does so. When he lands, the images are handed to a British agent who is then knocked down and killed by a car.

A second agent is sent to Finland to obtain the images from the dead man’s belongings. There are no images and the agent comes back empty handed.

Intelligence decides the best option now is to send in an undercover agent to try and take pictures of the site itself. The agent is trained and becomes familiar with his wireless signalling equipment before heading over the border from West to East Germany on his mission…