In one German town

The small German town in the title of the novel indicates the capital of West Germany Bonn . The novel is set in the mid-1960s in the British Embassy. In 1961–1963, John Le Carré worked as the second adviser to the British embassy in Bonn, and therefore was well acquainted with the city and with the work of the embassy.

Against the background of the dangerous strengthening of the political positions of right-wing forces that have rallied around Essen industrialist Klaus Karfeld and student unrest, the British Embassy is concerned about anti-British tendencies in West German politics. In a difficult situation, when the Ministry of the Interior of Germany recommended the staff of the British Embassy not to leave the limits of Bonn, the second secretary of the embassy, ​​Leo Harting, disappears, and with him a number of documents.

Alan Turner, who arrived for an investigation from London, after a survey of embassy personnel, puts forward a version that Harting, who worked in the reclamation department, had access to NATO secret materials and passed the secret information to the Russians. Further investigation refutes this version. According to several employees, Harting was obsessed with some large-scale project; shortly before his disappearance, he declared that he was on some kind of trail. In the abandoned basement of the embassy, ​​Harting’s secret office is found, where he worked on his secret project to expose Klaus Karfeld, a former SS man who used poison gases in his concentration camp for his criminal human experiments and even included their results in his dissertation after the war. On the crime of Karfeld expired statute of limitations, Harting tried to kill Karfeld in Hanover . Turner suggests that Harting will try to kill Karfeld again during his visit to Bonn, but at the end of his speech in Bonn Karfeld, Harting was found dead.

• John le carre. In one German town. Progress, 1990. ISBN 5-01-002092-0