Berlin Game [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Len Deighton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1984 | Series: Charnwood library series

He was the best source the department ever had, but now he wanted to come over the Wall. 'Brahms Four' was certain a high-ranking mole was set to betray him.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The smoothness with which narrator Robert Whitfield handles the wide array of foreign accents adds an international flavor to this suspenseful espionage thriller. One of Britain's most valued and productive spies wants to defect to the West after decades of service. He has requested that Bernard Samson, a veteran British intelligence agent who now enjoys the safety of his senior level desk job, help him escape. Samson is obliged to undertake the project since the spy saved his life when he was a field agent in East Berlin long ago. When Samson discovers evidence that the KGB has infiltrated British intelligence, he knows he must move quickly to return to Cold War-era East Berlin before his colleague's identity is exposed. Deighton's (Spy Sinker, Audio Reviews, LJ 4/15/95) dignified narrative style gives the program a properness that is characteristic of high-level government proceedings. A worthwhile purchase for most public libraries.?Mark P. Tierney, Charles Cty. Pub. Schs., Waldorf, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Each scene in this story is so adroitly realized that it creates its own suspense. --Newsweek

The smoothness with which narrator Robert Whitfield handles the wide array of foreign accents adds an international flavor to this suspenseful espionage thriller. --Library Journal

Deighton's best novel to date - sharp, witty and sour, like Raymond Chandler adapted to British gloom and the multiple betrayals of the private spy. --Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print Books Ltd; Large Print edition edition (July 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0708981984
• ISBN-13: 978-0708981986
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,540,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The things we do for love . . . and loyalty., February 1, 2004

By 

Larry Scantlebury (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Berlin Game

Bernard Samson is getting older. And in his line of work that's a definite drawback. No EEOC here to preclude discrimination against the over 40 crowd. Here getting older might mean your death.

Samson worries about all of the things all of us do. His passion for his wife Fiona is often visited by equal doses of lust and insecurity. His car is shot; when is going to be able to pick up his new set of wheels? His boredom with the job and his immediate superiors are both frustrating and funny. One thing is clear, though, Bernard Samson holds loyalty above all. When he was much younger and the East German Police were closing in on him, a planted agent whom we know now only as "Brahms Four" comes back to get him, and saves Bernard's life. Now years later, that anonymous agent wants out and he wants Bernard to bring him out.

Carrying all the boredom of a careful precise job where to err is not human but terminal, Samson plots and plods to regain the mettle to cross the line into East Berlin and extract his friend. Bernard is of course in his own right, an excellent spy.

Bernard Samson is like Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, the antithesis of the sleek, flashy James Bond. The normal man or woman caught up in the spy game, not necessarily of their own choosing, trying to get through another dreary, scary day.

The writing is excellent. Double crosses, infidelities, triple crosses, humor and lies frequent this is a trip into the past where authors like Deighton, LeCarre and DeMille cut their teeth, in the evil Russian Empire post WWII spy network.

If you liked Charm School or other works set in the shadow of the Berlin Wall when Russia was the reincarnation of the Nazi Empire, you'll thoroughly enjoy this trip back to the early '80s, and the first of Deighton's Bernard Samson trilogy.
Five stars. Larry Scantlebury

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Meet Bernard Samson, February 19, 2001

By 

"michaeleve" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Berlin Game (Paperback)

At the time of reading this book many years ago, I had no idea that this book was the first in a triple-trilogy of Bernard Samson spy novels. Actually I'm not so sure that Mr Deighton himself knew it at the time of writing. Doesn't matter if it ended up being the only one because this one is a good story on it's own and the characters are something else again. Bernard Samson the protagonist is a cynical but humorous middle aged ex-field agent for Britain's MI6. He's married to Fiona who also works in the agency. There is fidgety Dicky Cruyer, supervisor for the German Desk and Frank Harrington, of the Berlin office, preoccupied with his mistress who lives the near the 'Wall' - (ah! does this mean good old pre 'Berlin Wall collapse', Cold War, East-West spy thriller?, you may ask. Yes indeed! and one of the best of the genre in terms of a complex plot with quite a twist at the end).

'Brahms Four' wants out of Berlin, and Bernard, who grew up in Berlin and knows it like the back of his hand, is sent to get him. He takes the mission against the objection of his wife and even though he's at the age where his best field days are in the past. The real danger to him and the mission though is that someone in London is leaking information to the KGB. I'm not revealing too much in telling you that the book concludes with Bernard succeeding in getting 'Brahms Four' and his secret out and at the same time exposing who the mole in MI6 is.

Good stuff, and certainly worth a sequel.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best read as a trilogy - Game, Set, Match, October 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Berlin Game (Paperback)

After I read this book, I gave it four stars. After reading the whole trilogy - Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match - I upped my rating to five stars. Each book can standalone, but the full potential of the story isn't realized until the denouement of London Match. The tension ebbs and flows throughout the trilogy, but it isn't until the climax of London Match that we see the full scope. Highly recommended!