Harry Palmer is serving as a working-class British sergeant in Berlin as the Cold War rages in the 1960s. Palmer is a sharp and savvy operator, with varied side-hustles that ultimately land him trouble with the law for crimes that could mean an eight-year stretch in a grim English military jail. But spotting Palmer’s potential, and his network in Berlin, an intelligence officer offers him a way to avoid prison by becoming a spy. His first case is The Ipcress File — a dangerous undercover mission on which Palmer must use his links to a man suspected of kidnapping a missing British nuclear scientist.