Harry Pendel, the Tailor of the title, who's half-blackmailed half-bribed into spying for Britain. Pendel's a voluntary exile from a rather sordid lower-class existence in Britain, who's remade himself (and promoted himself socially) in the exile and wanna-be Brit community of Panama. He lies to everyone about his background, so when he becomes a British spy, it should come as no surprise that he immediately begins to fabricate information there, too. Pendel's controller is Andy Osnard, a shady character with hidden agendas of his own, and behind him there's a rogue's gallery of crooked embassy officials, government functionaries, American soldiers, espionage service supervisors, and even a Murdoch-like media baron who tries to create the news in order to better report it ala William Randolf Hearst. The heads of two governments decide to invade a country on the basis of the fabrications of this silly tailor who's trying to recoup his wife's inheritance, which he lost in a bad investment.