Customer Reviews

Horse Under Water

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... and this time heads for deep waters. This was written around the same time as "The Ipcress File". It is well written with enough twists and turns to keep you reading to the end. Sometimes it flounders about but nonetheless keeps its head abover water. "The Ipcress File" and "Funeral in Berlin" have more more depth and character development but "Horse Under Water" holds its own.

The spy with no name became "Harry Palmer" in the films which starred Michael Caine. This novel was next in line to be filmed but apparently the dissappointing box office of Ken Russell's "The Billion Dollar Brain" -- an eccentric but entertaining version of the book -- led to the demise of the film series. To bad. "Horse Under Water" has the makings of a fine drama.

John Le Carré (JLC)'s and Len Deighton (LD)'s early 1960's spy novels have not aged much in human terms. They deal with (counter-) espionage against the backdrop of the Cold War. The heroes and opponents of both authors sometimes go back to WW II. Re the British-Soviet victory over Hitler Germany, there is even some lingering mutual respect, more so in LD's books than in JLC's. But much has changed since as regards technology.
The most charming evidence of the possible aging of 1960s and -70s spy novels are the cars. In "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", JLC's hero Jim Prideaux drives an 'Alvin'("Best Car England ever Made"), in "Horse under Water", the nameless hero shakes off a tailing 'Ford Anglia', then finds another tail, a 'Bristol 407' firmly parked opposite his flat. The hero's boss drives a 'Riley', described by LD as "Britain's answer to US space exploration". Thanks to Google these monuments to 1960s British engineering can be admired instantly. Without doubt hundreds are today kept roadworthy by clubs of aficionados.
The nameless hero of this novel smokes Gauloise cigarettes and is serious about good coffee. He spent part of WW II in Portugal. He and his boss Dawlish work in a secret branch of the War Office called W.O.O.C (P), located in a shabby building in Charlotte Street in London. They will reappear in later books. In this novel, the hero is sent on a diving course in preparation for a venture that might yield a lot of counterfeit money from a sunken German WW II submarine, which could be re-invested, budget-neutral, in a group intent on overthrowing the then-ruling Salazar dictatorship in Portugal. Its principal locations are London and Albufeira in Portugal's Algarve.

Apart from diving 40 meters deep, the anonymous hero is constantly trying to find out what is really at stake. And why it is him to find out? Claustrophobic readers should skip the probes into the dark interior of the massive Nazi U-Boot. Before and during the dives the nameless hero is tailed, his messages are intercepted, and some of the associates forced on him, die. His mission objectives are vague and remain so. What is going on? Who is behind it all? No one seems to be who he claims to be. And some local connections go back to WW II, even to the Spanish civil war. Even the horse under water is not a horse... Many questions are raised and most of the answers are given in 58 brief chapters and six Appendixes.
Compulsive reading, lots of history and WW II anecdote with some flippancy about UK's higher circles. Nice read.

The second book of the original series by the author where the unnamed protagonist - who has come to be known, by virtue of that being the name used in the three film adaptations, as Harry Palmer - is sent on a mission that - whether known by his superiors in advance or not being up to the reader - has several unforeseen consequences.

As part of a plan to fund a revolution in Portugal, our (anti-)hero is sent there to recover a coin-making die that will allow the revolutionaries to mint phony UK currency while maintaining plausible deniability for the government. The die was made during World War Two by the Nazis as a way to destabilize Britain's economy by flooding the market with counterfeit coins. The item is not easy to recover, not in the least because it is believed to be on a sunken Nazi submarine. The problem of recovery is exacerbated not just the actual location of the die but what else is to be found in the same location.

This confluence of desired objects brings together several groups, each with their own agenda. Ultimately, we learn the notional treasure trove - sunken treasure no less - has an article of value far, far beyond anything else that will be recovered. The use of this tool, this counter-force weapon, is so great that it allows those possessing it to control some of the people perceived by the masses as being in power themselves. At the end of the story, our narrator is faced with the fact his adversary - in somewhat the same way as Jay in `Ipcress File' - continues doing more-or-less what he did prior to the events unfolding. The question becomes who will wield this lever of influence and for what purpose? While depicted as certainly eccentric, Mr. Dawlish - head of W.O.O.C. (P) - was certainly as ruthless as was needed by the situation.

It's hard to imagine now just how exciting these books were at the time of their publishing in the early 60s. Fleming's Bond was suave, debonair and deadly with capital letters. Deighton's lead - much like Le Carre's Alec Leamas, who we also met in 1963 - was neither suave nor debonair. Leamas was certainly deadly and it would be naïve to think the protagonist in this story was not a killer. After all, he was acting as a field agent and there are references in this book and the others to working at the notional sharp end of the spear during the war.

But, both Fleming and LeCarre write in the third person, which opened up some distance from their character. With Deighton's first-person writing, we got into the head of the professional intelligence operative, a man with hobbies and hopes and dreams and plans and schemes who knew, deep in his heart - he was nothing more than an expendable tool of his government.

This follow-up is more conventional than IPCRESS File, a lot less stylish, but still well-written and involving. Here the agent later dubbed "Harry Palmer" gets mixed up with drugs, counterfeiting and some left-over Nazis. The first half has the feel of an Alistair McLean novel, as he leads a group on a salvage operation at sea. Later things get more convoluted as we get to the finale.

The best part of the book comes as the hero bolts the scene of an ambush where a colleague is killed. He then gives a bold testimonial of how for him it's never personal. It's a cynical variation on the Hawksian notion for an espionage novel, and reflecting thinking that in today's books and films is entirely gone.

This is a fairly old book and it does not hold up well to the passage of time. I would suggest you move one to another book unless the particular plot is something you are really interested in or you want to cover all of the authors work. I would say that the book is as well written as most of his other work, but that characters and plot do not get as much development as his later efforts.