Following a misadventure in Cairo (involving, somewhat predictably, a woman, an arms dealer, and Her Majesty's Government) British-Army-officer-turned-hotelier Jonathan Pine is now four years into a seemingly self-imposed exile in Switzerland, living quietly in a sparsely-furnished bunker building near his new employment, in Zermatt.
Motivated by unfolding events, he decides to renew his contact with a government agency in 'Victoria, London', and hurries home from work to dig out their phone number. He finds it tucked inside a copy of The Letters of TE Lawrence (ed. David Garnett), at the page headed
THE YEARS OF HIDE AND SEEK: 1922 - 1929thereby nicely tying together themes of personal mortification, (unsuccessful) reclusiveness, and - Le Carré's go-to narrative device - damn-fool heroics by not-quite-upper-middle 'English' military types interfering in things they don't understand and which they cannot possibly hope to control.
I wasn't able to make out a lot of Pine's remaining bookshelf; but it did also contain The Dynasts and, of course, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
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