The Tailor of Panama

Name: The Tailor of Panama
Rating: 3.9 (1533 reviews)

by John le Carré

First published 1996

Amazon

3.9(1,533)

Harry Pendel, a British tailor in Panama with a concealed criminal past, is recruited by intelligence officer Andrew Osnard. Pressured to provide information he does not possess, Pendel invents a network of political sources and an opposition movement capable of threatening the canal.

Osnard passes the fabrications upward because they serve official ambitions, and the invented intelligence begins to produce real military consequences. The novel is a satire of espionage, intervention and the willingness of governments to act on information they want to believe.