Showing men carried away by fear and pride, The Looking Glass War is a powerful, moving story of human frailty.

A Cold War thriller from the master of spy fiction, John le Carré's The Looking Glass War is a gripping novel of double-crosses, audacious bluffs and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, published in Penguin Modern Classics.

When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumour of a missile base near the West German border, it seems like the perfect opportunity to regain some political standing in the Intelligence market place. The Cold War is at its height and the Department is dying for a piece of the action.

Swiftly becoming carried away by fear and pride, the Department and her officers send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate becomes inseparable from the Department's.

If you enjoyed The Looking Glass War, you might like le Carré's The Secret Pilgrim, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.