I first met George Smiley when I was 21. The tap on my shoulder happened in suburban Essex when, home for Christmas, I watched Sir Alec Guinness’ sublime performance as the spymaster in the 1979 BBC adaptation of the John Le Carré novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This complex tale of espionage, human frailty and betrayal, played out in the morally grey and stodgily brown 70s Britain that lingered into my childhood in the 80s, blew me away and I’ve been obsessed ever since.