Customer Reviews

Yesterday's Spy

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4 star:		(2)
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The book's narrator Charley (work name during WW II Charles Bonnard), was a very young SIS agent when he was dropped by submarine on the south coast of France. His brief was to make contact with the Communists, the only French deemed reliable at the time, and build a network of spies and helpers. Miraculously, the network survived until the end of the war, except for the French priest Marius, its leader, who was betrayed and killed by the Gestapo.
Times are turbulent in the early 1970s. The third Arab-Israeli war, the oil embargo, Olympic athletes killed and airplanes hijacked. Oil-rich Arab countries are expected to become rich beyond imagination.
Some 25 years later, the surviving members of the network are gravitating towards Nice. Not as a reunion party, but because of the career choices of some of its former members, who have kept a weary eye on each other ever since the war ended. When one former member of the wartime spy network is rumoured to help, and is perhaps already busy providing Arab countries with what they cherish most, powerful weapons, perhaps the ultimate one, Charley is ordered to investigate and insinuate his way into one of his former spy colleagues' new life and entourage...
This is a brilliantly plotted spy novel, which has not aged over time. Len Deighton (LD) has created a remarkable cast of people, including an abrasive US colonel who was involved with the WW II network, a former Gestapo investigator of the network turned spy for West Germany, the betrayed Marius' two sisters and the Jewish, Communist person whom Charley approached first in 1941.
Creating characters like Charley was LD's challenge to the credibility of the best known spies of the era, George Smiley and James Bond. Charley is working class, resourceful, weary and respects no one. His accent is that of Burnley, UK. He can pass for a bum or a successful businessman. He lives in bed-sits and chaotic flats.
Authentic background, great characters, good plot. But who betrayed Marius?

Finally, LD has written some 40 volumes of highly acclaimed fiction and faction about espionage and warfare. His WW II books are unsurpassed, e.g. SS/GB about the German occupation of GB. Fans, wherever you live, review his books, to keep him/them in print.

A brilliant novel about espionage, treachery, murder and friendship. Although written during the early 1970s, the plot could be from contemporary newspaper stories about Arab terrorist groups. Plus, there are more twists and turns than roads from the Italian Alps into Switzerland. I do not want to spoil your read, so all I will say is disregard the clues because nothing is as appears. Also, you will never guess the ending. So, just enjoy this tremendous novel.

Steve Champion, a former British intelligence agent and leader of the World War II "Guernica Network", an old Villefranche anti-Nazi intelligence group, is living in the south of France. Allegedly, Steve is retired and simply an avid stamp collector. But, MI-6, the British foreign intelligence service, thinks Steve is secretly involved with Arab groups seeking to obtain nuclear weapons; and, an agent infiltrated into Champion's inner circle is missing. The only solution is to activate Charlie, one of Champion's wartime friends. Sounds easy except Charlie is not told the entire story and has to operate in the proverbial dark.

Excellent plotting, pacing, character development, settings, dialogue, etc. Absolutely fascinating. You will think this is based on a true story. Len Deighton at his best.

Deighton's mostly unidentified agent goes by the name of "Charlie" when he is identified in this book. It's a vintage Deighton book, a clever plot, lots of aptly described local color, some nice little aphorisms here and there and all of it wrapped in the charmingly well written, affable perspective of Deighton's man. I recommend it without reservation.

Over the decades, there was always one trait that Len Deighton maintained in his protagonist: mistrust of virtually all around him. And this trait kept him alive more often than his skills as an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Those who have read most/all of his books know that Deighton "indexed" the character's age through a number of phases. The first phase was Harry Palmer, the anti-hero agent of the 1960s so unlike James Bond (though somewhat like Alec LaCarre's Alec Leamas). The last phase was Bernard Samson, the middle-aged working class hero who was betrayed at every twist and turn by everyone and anyone with whom he came in contact. Samson was also the character that, perhaps, was the least likeable version of the character because it was clear about midway through the nine-volume story that his view of the world was colored by his own flaws. The middle phase is a transitional one. While still a veteran of World War Two, the character appears younger, or at least more naïve. He's also a long-term SIS agent, no transfer to WOOC (P), though Dawlish is here, albeit in a more lofty position of authority. There's also a bit of muddiness to the character; he's not quite the same across all three books that comprise this middle phase. Looking forward, this series of books also marks the onset of personal tragedies that boil to the surface in the Samson books.

Yesterday's Spy is the middle book of the three. Its premise is that a person will do whatever it takes to acquire and retain that which is most important to them. For Charlie - the nom-de-jour, if you will, of our protagonist - his mission is to decipher and ultimately thwart the plans of his mentor/father figure, Steve Champion. The journey of discovery requires he retrace his steps back to WW2 and his first meeting with Champion in occupied France. As he does this, he comes in contact with all the players from that time and, like peeling an onion - an analogy that the author has used several times in his novels - Charlie finds ever more layers that reveal an odor of deceit and betrayal. While a cliché, one has to say it: No one is who they seem to be.

That tenet extends to Charlie's superiors who - perhaps due to fears he is compromised by his long-term relationship with Champion (itself an interesting choice of names, don't you think?) or because of the dictum of `need-to-know' - have had him checking up on the man for years via the ruse of chance meetings. Just like Charlie, the reader comes to believe there is more they know and less they tell about the relationship between the SIS and Steve Champion. Throughout the story, one is constantly forced to consider the possibility events have been staged to cause a specific effect. More than once, our spy has to ponder which party speaks the truth - - knowing full well that the answer is neither.

And when Steve Champion's goal is determined and the process that will be used to achieve, we are still left with ambiguity. Did Champion develop the plan himself or was it "suggested' to him. And, if the latter; then by whom? Even the climax is a bit ambiguous. Did Champion actually do what he presented himself as doing or was it all a notional sleight-of-hand that would achieve the same purpose? Either way, had the plan succeeded, Champion would have gotten what he really wanted. And what about Charlie? Well, he goes on, having done his job; having been let down and goes home, presumably back to his next assignment.

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed most of Len Deighton's books, but for some reason, this one escaped me. Till now, and I'm glad a relative foisted it upon me. Few authors write with the skill and authority of Deighton -- especially those of the "spy" genre. I'll take Deighton any day over the pretentious Le Carre or the hyperbolic Ian Fleming. I don't think this is one of Deighton's best books but Deighton's "average" is usually superior to other writer's "excellent." The plot seems to gently descend on the reader like a cloud and by book's end, you've absorbed a lot. Good characterization, good place descriptions, good plot. All of it enjoyable. It's been a while since I've read a Deighton book, and now I'm ready to go back and re-read his entire oevre. Few writers have given me more pleasure.