Funeral in Berlin [Paperback]

Len Deighton (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Grafton Books (1990)
• ASIN: B001AZN1J6
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I ever read!, January 5, 2005

By 

Stephen M. Zielinski (Depew, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Funeral in Berlin (Hardcover)

This was the second Len Deighton I read and words escape me as to how I felt about it. The suspense started on the first page and carried through the entire book, with virtually no lapses in the storyline. The characters were extremely interesting and well developed...I could almost picture them as real people in post-war Berlin. I rank this book alongside "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and the Smiley trilogy, both by John LeCarre. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a good read.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who was first?, April 23, 2002

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Funeral In Berlin (Paperback)

An oldie but goldie in the cold war spy double double-crossing genre. This has an original 1964 publication date. It came after Spy Story. Some characters recurr in The Ipcress File where the proragonist (nameless in this) is called Palmer. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold had already been written (and we'd had Graham Greene).
I remembered it for the ingenious plotting. Re-reading it I'm struck by the quality of the prose. Later Len Deightons don't contain such fancy writing. He loves describing the shabby and dingy:
"I looked around at Grenade's office: the brown-stained wainscotting, the plaster walls discolored in patches near the ceiling and the old-fashioned metal radiators under which a rash of cream-colored pimples proclaimed the haste of a clumsy painter."

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars when Deighton wasn't Ludlum, September 12, 1999

By 

Michael A. Smith "mikesmith329" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Funeral in Berlin (Paperback)

This was Deighton's second book, before he became vaguely hackish and joined the Ludlum/Forsythe "hefty Cold War thriller" gang. Here he has style to burn, definitely influenced by Chandler but not at all a pastiche or pale imitation. His sentences are crisp and always un-cliched; his attitude, as filtered through his nameless British protagonist, is cynical and put-upon and tough as a blackjack. You're more than welcome to picture Michael Caine embodying the anti-hero, as he did in the effective (though a bit uneven) film.