A Letter From The Publisher, Oct. 3, 1977

Probably one of the first spy-novel fans to become intrigued with John le Carré's new bestseller, The Honourable Schoolboy, was TIME Hong Kong Correspondent Bing Wong. In fact, he got involved with the book and author that are the subjects of this week's cover story well before Le Carré—David Cornwell, that is—began to write his tale of British intelligence and Far Eastern intrigue. Wong and Cornwell met in the summer of 1975 in Hong Kong. As Wong recounts, Cornwell "picked my brain" for background detail. Last October, when Cornwell returned to the city,...