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Secret File #4
Billion Dollar Brain
The classic spy thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniac’s private cold war, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File.The fourth of Deighton’s novels to be narrated by the unnamed employee of WOOC(P) is the thrilling story of an anti-communist espionage network owned by a Texan billionaire, General Midwinter, run from a vast computer complex known as the Brain.After having been recruited by Harvey Newbegin, the narrator travels from the bone-freezing winter of Helsinki, Riga and Leningrad, to the stifling heat of Texas, and soon finds himself tangling with enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
55 people are currently reading
731 people want to read
About the author
Len Deighton
222 books930 followersDeighton was born in Marylebone, London, in 1929. His father was a chauffeur and mechanic, and his mother was a part-time cook. After leaving school, Deighton worked as a railway clerk before performing his National Service, which he spent as a photographer for the Royal Air Force's Special Investigation Branch. After discharge from the RAF, he studied at St Martin's School of Art in London in 1949, and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1955.
Deighton worked as an airline steward with BOAC. Before he began his writing career he worked as an illustrator in New York and, in 1960, as an art director in a London advertising agency. He is credited with creating the first British cover for Jack Kerouac's On the Road. He has since used his drawing skills to illustrate a number of his own military history books.
Following the success of his first novels, Deighton became The Observer's cookery writer and produced illustrated cookbooks. In September 1967 he wrote an article in the Sunday Times Magazine about Operation Snowdrop - an SAS attack on Benghazi during World War II. The following year David Stirling would be awarded substantial damages in libel from the article.
He also wrote travel guides and became travel editor of Playboy, before becoming a film producer. After producing a film adaption of his 1968 novel Only When I Larf, Deighton and photographer Brian Duffy bought the film rights to Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop's stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! He had his name removed from the credits of the film, however, which was a move that he later described as "stupid and infantile." That was his last involvement with the cinema.
Deighton left England in 1969. He briefly resided in Blackrock, County Louth in Ireland. He has not returned to England apart from some personal visits and very few media appearances, his last one since 1985 being a 2006 interview which formed part of a "Len Deighton Night" on BBC Four. He and his wife Ysabele divide their time between homes in Portugal and Guernsey.
Deighton worked as an airline steward with BOAC. Before he began his writing career he worked as an illustrator in New York and, in 1960, as an art director in a London advertising agency. He is credited with creating the first British cover for Jack Kerouac's On the Road. He has since used his drawing skills to illustrate a number of his own military history books.
Following the success of his first novels, Deighton became The Observer's cookery writer and produced illustrated cookbooks. In September 1967 he wrote an article in the Sunday Times Magazine about Operation Snowdrop - an SAS attack on Benghazi during World War II. The following year David Stirling would be awarded substantial damages in libel from the article.
He also wrote travel guides and became travel editor of Playboy, before becoming a film producer. After producing a film adaption of his 1968 novel Only When I Larf, Deighton and photographer Brian Duffy bought the film rights to Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop's stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! He had his name removed from the credits of the film, however, which was a move that he later described as "stupid and infantile." That was his last involvement with the cinema.
Deighton left England in 1969. He briefly resided in Blackrock, County Louth in Ireland. He has not returned to England apart from some personal visits and very few media appearances, his last one since 1985 being a 2006 interview which formed part of a "Len Deighton Night" on BBC Four. He and his wife Ysabele divide their time between homes in Portugal and Guernsey.
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March 14, 2025
Give up all hope, all you who enter herein...
Just before my first term at university started, the newswires were still hot with the fall of Alexander Dubcek and massive armed Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The Cold War was dipping into a Deep Freeze.
Of course we were all scared silly, but being the kid that I was I took the path of least resistance, and curled up with a good book - THIS one.
Back then, used paperbacks were cheap, and - amazingly - still having 20/20 vision, the incredibly small print of that tiny format was no problem for me.
And what better book than a Cold War spy novel, given the news?
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought, in a green shade.
But real life on the edge of the Twenty-First Century tends to annihilate all our escapes. Help! There are no more green shades anymore, save in a casino.
This was my first Deighton, but by no means my last. I found I was easily hooked on his tension...
I remember to this day the icy chill I felt as I read, that sweltering August evening out on my parents’ patio, this story about an anonymous Brit spy’s trek to the Finnish tundra - there to track down the dangerously loonie-tunes evil mastermind of the Billion Dollar Brain, General Midwinter!
Ready for it?
He had built a supercomputer that knew about everything and everybody in the world.
Sure, I know that sounds familiar. Back then, though, it was sheer paranoia...
But, now here’s a new Supervirus, as well, says Len Deighton - even MORE familiar to us - but back then a mastermind supercomputer was WAY scarier than the virus is to us now.
So, my mind finally off the Commies, I managed to get one last Big Chill in before hitting the books.
I had read le Carré’s Spy Who Came in from the Cold earlier that summer. But that was just too brutally realistic for a kid with a noggin chock full of dreams. And Deighton was cooler.
Back then I thought I was cool, too. Brought up on the Beatles and the Mersey Beat, I had learned young to see the world from a comfortable distance.
And my new idol was Stephen Dedalus, that young dreaming creator who wallowed in the luxury of creating from an angle, ‘paring his fingernails, indifferent!’
Yeah, I had a lot to learn.
Soon after I was to be jarred brutally awake by the REAL WORLD. As Pete Townsend warns us:
You must have heard the cautionary tales
The dangers hidden on the cul-de-sac trails
From wiser men who’ve been through it all
And ghosts of failures spray-painted on the wall...
You can put off facing the face of the world almost endlessly. The varieties of escape open to you are endless.
Some guys, though, like William Carlos Williams in that cutting jeremiad, Paterson, decide to operate on this cancer without a minute’s delay.
So Williams, by profession a doctor (as well as one of the finest American poets of the twentieth century), makes a swift, clean incision immediately - removing the awful tumour that has pained his suffering patient forever - and, voilà! his agonized patient is healed.
The recovery will be long and hard - but it’s worth it!
And the name of that Tumour is Bad Faith... the massive fraud, deception and avarice we also know as Original Sin.
And this book, in 1968, was my last respite - into a fantasy about the encroachment of modernity (a fantasy now reality) - before the Fateful Face of Full Adulthood appeared.
Now, as an old man, I see General Midwinter’s ownership of a world-control computer has been forgotten, but we have once again been brought under his invincible power.
For as Deighton say in the book, through the Russian Colonel Stok, control is more subtle nowadays, because it’s simply a matter of “a change of molecules.” Chemistry is even scarier than supercomputers, isn’t it?
Our acquiescence in the change that invited total, blasé acceptance of evil has invited this Midwinter into our hearts.
We must never lose our inborn horror of the Pure Evil which is Selfhood...
Or else the hell of this ongoing Cold War to gain control of our souls will prove endless.
Just before my first term at university started, the newswires were still hot with the fall of Alexander Dubcek and massive armed Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The Cold War was dipping into a Deep Freeze.
Of course we were all scared silly, but being the kid that I was I took the path of least resistance, and curled up with a good book - THIS one.
Back then, used paperbacks were cheap, and - amazingly - still having 20/20 vision, the incredibly small print of that tiny format was no problem for me.
And what better book than a Cold War spy novel, given the news?
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought, in a green shade.
But real life on the edge of the Twenty-First Century tends to annihilate all our escapes. Help! There are no more green shades anymore, save in a casino.
This was my first Deighton, but by no means my last. I found I was easily hooked on his tension...
I remember to this day the icy chill I felt as I read, that sweltering August evening out on my parents’ patio, this story about an anonymous Brit spy’s trek to the Finnish tundra - there to track down the dangerously loonie-tunes evil mastermind of the Billion Dollar Brain, General Midwinter!
Ready for it?
He had built a supercomputer that knew about everything and everybody in the world.
Sure, I know that sounds familiar. Back then, though, it was sheer paranoia...
But, now here’s a new Supervirus, as well, says Len Deighton - even MORE familiar to us - but back then a mastermind supercomputer was WAY scarier than the virus is to us now.
So, my mind finally off the Commies, I managed to get one last Big Chill in before hitting the books.
I had read le Carré’s Spy Who Came in from the Cold earlier that summer. But that was just too brutally realistic for a kid with a noggin chock full of dreams. And Deighton was cooler.
Back then I thought I was cool, too. Brought up on the Beatles and the Mersey Beat, I had learned young to see the world from a comfortable distance.
And my new idol was Stephen Dedalus, that young dreaming creator who wallowed in the luxury of creating from an angle, ‘paring his fingernails, indifferent!’
Yeah, I had a lot to learn.
Soon after I was to be jarred brutally awake by the REAL WORLD. As Pete Townsend warns us:
You must have heard the cautionary tales
The dangers hidden on the cul-de-sac trails
From wiser men who’ve been through it all
And ghosts of failures spray-painted on the wall...
You can put off facing the face of the world almost endlessly. The varieties of escape open to you are endless.
Some guys, though, like William Carlos Williams in that cutting jeremiad, Paterson, decide to operate on this cancer without a minute’s delay.
So Williams, by profession a doctor (as well as one of the finest American poets of the twentieth century), makes a swift, clean incision immediately - removing the awful tumour that has pained his suffering patient forever - and, voilà! his agonized patient is healed.
The recovery will be long and hard - but it’s worth it!
And the name of that Tumour is Bad Faith... the massive fraud, deception and avarice we also know as Original Sin.
And this book, in 1968, was my last respite - into a fantasy about the encroachment of modernity (a fantasy now reality) - before the Fateful Face of Full Adulthood appeared.
Now, as an old man, I see General Midwinter’s ownership of a world-control computer has been forgotten, but we have once again been brought under his invincible power.
For as Deighton say in the book, through the Russian Colonel Stok, control is more subtle nowadays, because it’s simply a matter of “a change of molecules.” Chemistry is even scarier than supercomputers, isn’t it?
Our acquiescence in the change that invited total, blasé acceptance of evil has invited this Midwinter into our hearts.
We must never lose our inborn horror of the Pure Evil which is Selfhood...
Or else the hell of this ongoing Cold War to gain control of our souls will prove endless.
October 11, 2019
An entertaining Cold War thriller,about a supercomputer,set in Finland.
January 4, 2015
The technological innovation in the supercomputer which puts it a quantum jump ahead of all the competition is that it uses base 10 arithmetic rather than binary. Yeah, right.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 16, 2016
I have now finished the fourth and last “Harry Palmer” novel from Len Deighton, namely: Billion Dollar Brain. I reiterate that Harry Palmer is the name given to the character by the filmmakers of the three Michael Caine movies, though “Harry” goes under the working name of Liam Dempsey in this novel.
Like all the Deighton Palmer novels, The Billion-Dollar Brain is, to quote, Wikipedia, “intricate, with many dead ends.” The British WOOC(P) spy agency sends Palmer to Helsinki to investigate an American millionaire's private spy organization. This organization, called Facts for Freedom under the control of a General Midwinter, uses a large computer to issue instructions to its operatives.
Palmer goes along with the program, usually with Harvey Newbegin (introduced in Funeral in Berlin
The typical Harry Palmer novel is very intellectual and somewhat perplexing -- but well enough written that we are dying to see what happens next, as when Newbegin describes Signe to our hero:
Like all the Deighton Palmer novels, The Billion-Dollar Brain is, to quote, Wikipedia, “intricate, with many dead ends.” The British WOOC(P) spy agency sends Palmer to Helsinki to investigate an American millionaire's private spy organization. This organization, called Facts for Freedom under the control of a General Midwinter, uses a large computer to issue instructions to its operatives.
Palmer goes along with the program, usually with Harvey Newbegin (introduced in Funeral in Berlin
The typical Harry Palmer novel is very intellectual and somewhat perplexing -- but well enough written that we are dying to see what happens next, as when Newbegin describes Signe to our hero:
'Innocence,' said harvey. 'That's what she has, you see. To an innocent anything in the world is possible, because there's no experience programmed into the memory to tell you things aren't possible. You see ... innocence is the knowledge that you can do something, and experience is the knowledge you can't.'Well, I'm hooked. I'll just have to read some of Deighton's other spy novels.
April 13, 2022
The WOOC(P) Files #4
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition (April, 2021) of the original Jonathan Cape hardcover (1966)
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in a film still from Billion Dollar Brain (1967), image sourced from Classic Movies Photos Blogspot.
Billion-Dollar Brain had more of a simplified plot for Deighton's nameless protagonist (named "Harry Palmer" in the Michael Caine film adaptations) who works for a similarly anonymous British secret service known only by its initials WOOC(P). There were still some twists, but much less banter with the spy chief Dawlish. I LOL'd at this exchange though, where Dawlish hints at the "Palmer" character's often expressed lack of enthusiasm for the spy game:
The biggest surprise in retrospect (and which now reads as cringey) was secretary Jean's role back at head office. In the new 2022 television adaptation of the first book The Ipcress File (1962), both Jean and secretary Alice are turned into very formidable agents in their own right.
Billion-Dollar Brain is the 4th of my Len Deighton re-reads (I first read almost all of them in my teens) after having learned of the Penguin Modern Classics republication of all of his novels which were published during 2021 as outlined in an online article Why Len Deighton's spy stories are set to thrill a new generation (Guardian/Observer May 2, 2021).
Trivia and Link
This 4th book Billion-Dollar Brain was filmed (the 2nd Secret File/Harry Palmer book Horse Under Water was skipped over in the film adaptations) as the 3rd Harry Palmer film Billion Dollar Brain (1967) directed by Ken Russell. The 4th and 5th films still starred Michael Caine, but did not use Deighton's novels as the source material.
* It probably had a capability that would be bested by a modern day laptop.
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition (April, 2021) of the original Jonathan Cape hardcover (1966)
A billion dollars doesn't buy what it used to. - epigram used for Billion-Dollar Brain
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in a film still from Billion Dollar Brain (1967), image sourced from Classic Movies Photos Blogspot.
Billion-Dollar Brain had more of a simplified plot for Deighton's nameless protagonist (named "Harry Palmer" in the Michael Caine film adaptations) who works for a similarly anonymous British secret service known only by its initials WOOC(P). There were still some twists, but much less banter with the spy chief Dawlish. I LOL'd at this exchange though, where Dawlish hints at the "Palmer" character's often expressed lack of enthusiasm for the spy game:
When I said I'd told Harvey Newbegin that I only worked for WOOC(P) part-time, Dawlish said: 'Well you certainly weren't lying about that, were you?'Perennial Russian nemesis Colonel Stok makes his usual shady appearance. The so-called "billion-dollar brain" (actually costed at $300 million, with 1/2 for development & 1/2 for actual construction*) didn't really feature all that much and as opposed to a James Bond type ending where the agent would likely have blown up the apparatus and the complex that housed it, the ending was instead a very human based one of naïve faith and ultimate betrayal.
The biggest surprise in retrospect (and which now reads as cringey) was secretary Jean's role back at head office. In the new 2022 television adaptation of the first book The Ipcress File (1962), both Jean and secretary Alice are turned into very formidable agents in their own right.
Billion-Dollar Brain is the 4th of my Len Deighton re-reads (I first read almost all of them in my teens) after having learned of the Penguin Modern Classics republication of all of his novels which were published during 2021 as outlined in an online article Why Len Deighton's spy stories are set to thrill a new generation (Guardian/Observer May 2, 2021).
Trivia and Link
This 4th book Billion-Dollar Brain was filmed (the 2nd Secret File/Harry Palmer book Horse Under Water was skipped over in the film adaptations) as the 3rd Harry Palmer film Billion Dollar Brain (1967) directed by Ken Russell. The 4th and 5th films still starred Michael Caine, but did not use Deighton's novels as the source material.
* It probably had a capability that would be bested by a modern day laptop.
February 5, 2017
A really good spy novel. A little bit airy and light and certainly quite funny. However its not a comedy, there are some pretty absurd characters but i have a feeling they're probably more realistic than we would want them to be ;) .
Most of the humour comes from sardonic and cynical main character. Although there are some action scenes its mostly more realistic and low key than something like Bond.
Perhaps a little convenient at times but not too much and i wasn't too confused about what was happening which is always a danger in detective or spy fiction.
Everything was also quite easy to picture the style of writing being quite descriptive. Occasionally you'd get these almost stream-of-consiousness burst of description which were a little jarring from the rest of the writing but it was a quick and effective way to add detail to certain scenes.
Overall really enjoyable and clearly well researched and i think i might well check out some of Deighton's other books.
Most of the humour comes from sardonic and cynical main character. Although there are some action scenes its mostly more realistic and low key than something like Bond.
Perhaps a little convenient at times but not too much and i wasn't too confused about what was happening which is always a danger in detective or spy fiction.
Everything was also quite easy to picture the style of writing being quite descriptive. Occasionally you'd get these almost stream-of-consiousness burst of description which were a little jarring from the rest of the writing but it was a quick and effective way to add detail to certain scenes.
Overall really enjoyable and clearly well researched and i think i might well check out some of Deighton's other books.
July 18, 2014
This book isn't perfect. But it's my favourite of the Deightons. Maybe it's almost-perfect. I have the 1960s Penguin paperback which must've been a tie-in with the movie. And it's one of my prized possessions though as a valuable asset its worth is possibly $0.50. Great writing, because Deighton got into his stride in terms of elliptical style and a way of conveying more with less description. The scenes of the narrator with Signe the possibly-teenaged hired assassin are very funny. And though it's a story about an intelligence network owned by a Texas millionaire and run by a computer, and supposed to do what governments can't--despite the serious issues the novel's fun too, with all sort of different characters all with their own agenda. Includes an evocative description of NYC in the 1960s. Plus chapters set in Helsinki that were the reason I visited that city some years ago--while there I kept thinking things like, "Stockmann department store! Deighton saw this!"
July 26, 2020
Not a bad entry at all into the Len Deighton series of 1960s Cold War spy novels. Things don't quite hold together as well as in preceding novels, but that is primarily the fault of the last quarter to a third of the book, which jumps around. The passages detailing the trip to and into Helsinki are tightly plotted and fascinating in their atmosphere and the suspense they create. The trip to Texas is handled nicely enough, too. Not many cliches, although not much action either. Going back to the UK, the novel begins a bit of a downward trajectory, which is in full form by the time things get the USSR. One thing: Colonel Stok is becoming more and more likable to me. But I can't get Oskar Homolka image from the film version of Funeral in Berlin out of my mind.
Finally, just a mention of the comparison of the novel to the film. There is no comparison. The novel is enjoyable, albeit workmanlike. The film is a mess. All I can remember is snow and ice. It flopped. It should have done. The book is much better.
Finally, just a mention of the comparison of the novel to the film. There is no comparison. The novel is enjoyable, albeit workmanlike. The film is a mess. All I can remember is snow and ice. It flopped. It should have done. The book is much better.
September 10, 2017
ebook library (a story reminded)
Story set way back in late 50's to the start of the 60's as book published 1962 yet very insightful to the role of human nature, politics, idealogies, capitalism versus communism and the religious fervor of following ideals as portayed by private army owner and leader Midwinter. I would guess the stupidity highlighted relates to from wikipeadia:
" McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.[1] The term refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1947 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression as well as a campaign spreading fear of influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.itieshe classic thriller of a lethal computer age and a maniac's private cold war…"
General Midwinter loves his country, and hates communism. In a bid to destabilize the Soviet power bloc he is running his own intelligence agency, whose “brain” is the world's biggest supercomputer costing over a billion thus the title.
With his past coming back to haunt him, the unnamed agent of The Ipcress File is sent to Finland to penetrate Midwinter's spy cell. But then a deadly virus is stolen, and our hero must stop it from falling into the hands of both the Russians and the billionaire madman. The spy knows the key operative Newbinger already and for some unexplained reason is recruited.
Finnish Professor Kaarna has got wind that secrets that are been sold to the Russians. Somehow Midwinter group feel he is a threat and Siege the nubile sex pot young lady with that aura that attracts and yet no depth, is the assasin who murders Kaarna and through the story at least three others. She seems harmless but she is deadly. And she romantically hooks Newbinger who is embezzling the Midwinter group to support his wife's expensive lifestyle and thus in the end just wants out to start again thus trying to get the virus to the Russians as a way in to safety and a new life that he hopes will include the girl. He is deluded, of course as are most of the players in the story. In the end Harry Palmer (In the movies the name given to the spy is Harry Palmer played by Michael Cain and the spy is not named in the book normally called by whatever assumed name he is using at the time for id).
Another amazing insight way back then in the late 50's that the computer though the operatives sworn that it's directions were infallible, could not factor in the human element as is the case now. And all the key characters in the story did not really rely on "the brain" it was more framework, a peg to hang the coat so to speak. That would include the rich Midwinter, the religious anti communism zealot who by his anti fervour in a backhanded way was promoting the communism cause. The cause, the communism didn't really believe either. HP finally is cornered and pushes his long time friend under a bus noted by the Russian spy general Stok. Broken eggs etc and the day is saved once again. Cover up's left, right and centre. And in these instances probably for the best.
Very good insightful story.
Story set way back in late 50's to the start of the 60's as book published 1962 yet very insightful to the role of human nature, politics, idealogies, capitalism versus communism and the religious fervor of following ideals as portayed by private army owner and leader Midwinter. I would guess the stupidity highlighted relates to from wikipeadia:
" McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.[1] The term refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1947 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression as well as a campaign spreading fear of influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.itieshe classic thriller of a lethal computer age and a maniac's private cold war…"
General Midwinter loves his country, and hates communism. In a bid to destabilize the Soviet power bloc he is running his own intelligence agency, whose “brain” is the world's biggest supercomputer costing over a billion thus the title.
With his past coming back to haunt him, the unnamed agent of The Ipcress File is sent to Finland to penetrate Midwinter's spy cell. But then a deadly virus is stolen, and our hero must stop it from falling into the hands of both the Russians and the billionaire madman. The spy knows the key operative Newbinger already and for some unexplained reason is recruited.
Finnish Professor Kaarna has got wind that secrets that are been sold to the Russians. Somehow Midwinter group feel he is a threat and Siege the nubile sex pot young lady with that aura that attracts and yet no depth, is the assasin who murders Kaarna and through the story at least three others. She seems harmless but she is deadly. And she romantically hooks Newbinger who is embezzling the Midwinter group to support his wife's expensive lifestyle and thus in the end just wants out to start again thus trying to get the virus to the Russians as a way in to safety and a new life that he hopes will include the girl. He is deluded, of course as are most of the players in the story. In the end Harry Palmer (In the movies the name given to the spy is Harry Palmer played by Michael Cain and the spy is not named in the book normally called by whatever assumed name he is using at the time for id).
Another amazing insight way back then in the late 50's that the computer though the operatives sworn that it's directions were infallible, could not factor in the human element as is the case now. And all the key characters in the story did not really rely on "the brain" it was more framework, a peg to hang the coat so to speak. That would include the rich Midwinter, the religious anti communism zealot who by his anti fervour in a backhanded way was promoting the communism cause. The cause, the communism didn't really believe either. HP finally is cornered and pushes his long time friend under a bus noted by the Russian spy general Stok. Broken eggs etc and the day is saved once again. Cover up's left, right and centre. And in these instances probably for the best.
Very good insightful story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 14, 2024
This is a somewhat dated story from the 1960s, or so it feels reading it 60+ years on. Deighton prefaces each chapter with a dark, disturbing “nursery rhyme”, I suppose to set the mood/reflect the Cold War era: a London that is even darker and grittier than before or during the war. (It is a London where housing was still affordable, however: one could find a starter home in Hampstead with a £10,000 mortgage.)
The hero is an unnamed middle-aged British spy for hire. In the book’s Introduction, Deighton states that this unnamed spy became known as Harry Palmer after the first novel in the series—“The Ipcress Files”—was made into a (wildly popular) film starring Michael Caine. “Despite his many faults the readers liked the hero, …. And Michael Caine’s brilliant depiction of him did a great deal to effect that.”
““Harry” then (to say “the unnamed spy” or “Mr. X” repeatedly would be awkward) likes to smoke Gauloise cigarettes and has an office on the second floor of a building on Charlotte Street, North London, that he calls “an ancient, creaking slum”. The ground floor is occupied by “Acme Films. Cutting Rooms“, and the third by “B Isaacs Theatrical Tailor’, the sign for which Harry initially found quite amusing. (There is humor here so dry it could spontaneously combust.)
We first meet Harry in the office with Jean, his tall, effortlessly beautiful secretary whom he asked to a party the night before but then abandoned her there to joke around with his mates. (Real classy, Harry.)
There were times when I thought that I was in love with Jean and there were times when I thought that she was in love with me, but somehow these times never coincided.” Ha—Because he is never quite serious enough. When he asks if she enjoyed the party last night, she says
‘You seemed to…. When I left you were drinking a pint of bitter while standing on your head.’
‘You do exaggerate. Why did you go home alone?’
“I have two hungry cats to support. Two thirty is definitely my bedtime.” Then:
’Going with you to a party is to be there alone. You plant me down, go around chatting with everyone, then wonder why I haven’t met them all.’
‘Tonight,’ I said, ‘we’ll go to some quiet place for dinner. Just us.’
‘I’m taking no chances. Tonight I’m cooking you a birthday feast at the flat. I’ll give you all your favourite things.’
‘You will?’
‘To eat.’
‘I’ll be there,’ I said.
‘You’d better be.’
She gave me a perfunctory kiss – ‘Happy birthday’ – and leaned across and put a glass of water and two Alka Seltzer tablets and a glass of water on his blotter.
”Why not put the tablets into the water?’ I asked.
‘I wasn’t sure if you could bear the noise.’ (Bada-boom.)
After while Harry invites Jean to birthday lunch at a favorite Italian restaurant where they drink Pol Roger “between shots of Strega”. When they finally roll back into the office at 3:45 pm, Harry’s boss Dawlish (“who looked like an Edwardian coroner“) ‘rewards’ him by sending him to Finland—tomorrow—in the deep dark of winter to question Finnish journalist Olaf Kaarna, who plans to publish a story about a British global spy network in Northern Europe. Harry is to thwart publication by any means possible. He objects to being chosen for the mission, citing his lack of Finnish language or country knowledge. Quel dommage. He is sent on his way to Whitechapel for a fake passport from Sonny Sontag, who gives him the cover name Liam Dempsey, born in Cork, Ireland. Liam/Harry’s stats: 5', 11", blue eyes, dark-brown hair, dark complexion.
American spy Harvey Newbegin, who was a minor character in Deighton’s “Funeral in Berlin“, has a bigger role here, part of a double-act with Harry. Harvey “had been with the US Defense Department for four years before transferring to the State Department.” Harry had “tried to get him working for his organization at one time”, but Dawlish “had failed to obtain authority” for it.
Each becomes a love interest for statuesque blonde Finnish beauty Signe Laine who tells Liam in perfect English that Professor Kaarna works for her—though she is only 18 years old. She first tells Liam that she works for British Intelligence, but he learns the truth much later in New York City. She seems strangely naive at times but has no problem hopping into bed with married Yank Harvey Newbegin, who is in love with her. Harvey is a “short, thickset man with thinning brown hair”, but who is also an excellent dancer. When Signe brings Liam to a bar to meet Harvey, they find him practicing the rumba alone with drink in hand. ‘Well, you old Limey sonuvabitch. I knew it was you,’ then proceeds to waltz Signe around the room. Harvey recruits Harry for a “quick job that pays well”: carrying a bioweapon (virus) for CIA. The British and the Soviets are also desperate to claim possession of the virus that is incubating inside live unhatched eggs.
Confused yet? Well, just wait. Between the multiple Yank agencies, the British War Office and the small, independent spy agency Harry works for, there is Porton Down (British CBW research facility), two mad scientist brothers, one of whom created the virus, both of whom Harry chases; then Soviets chase Harry and Harvey across snowy, frozen Finland to the USSR border once they are in possession of the viral eggs. Last but not least, an American megalomaniac multimillionaire from Texas named “General” Midwinter (snow and ice appear everywhere in this story) is funding a private army of “patriotic Americans”. (Sounds like Trump’s MAGA Republicans—or, more frighteningly, like his “2025” organization.)
The book gets its title from Midwinter’s super-brain computer that messages workers with their assignments. It gives the novel a futuristic/sci-fi vibe yet retro at the same time (being 1960s analog), a bit more realistic than Austin Powers, but not by much from the vantage point of digital 2024.
The story becomes much more complicated because Harvey and Signe are involved with Midwinter, as well as with each other. Then Harvey’s wife gets in on the action, too. It gets to be a veritable circus of characters. All the while Harry/Liam’s mandate grows ever larger as Dawlish adds more and more tasks.
The novel is worth reading for the dry humor and the retro Cold War, James Bond-ish vibe.
The hero is an unnamed middle-aged British spy for hire. In the book’s Introduction, Deighton states that this unnamed spy became known as Harry Palmer after the first novel in the series—“The Ipcress Files”—was made into a (wildly popular) film starring Michael Caine. “Despite his many faults the readers liked the hero, …. And Michael Caine’s brilliant depiction of him did a great deal to effect that.”
““Harry” then (to say “the unnamed spy” or “Mr. X” repeatedly would be awkward) likes to smoke Gauloise cigarettes and has an office on the second floor of a building on Charlotte Street, North London, that he calls “an ancient, creaking slum”. The ground floor is occupied by “Acme Films. Cutting Rooms“, and the third by “B Isaacs Theatrical Tailor’, the sign for which Harry initially found quite amusing. (There is humor here so dry it could spontaneously combust.)
We first meet Harry in the office with Jean, his tall, effortlessly beautiful secretary whom he asked to a party the night before but then abandoned her there to joke around with his mates. (Real classy, Harry.)
There were times when I thought that I was in love with Jean and there were times when I thought that she was in love with me, but somehow these times never coincided.” Ha—Because he is never quite serious enough. When he asks if she enjoyed the party last night, she says
‘You seemed to…. When I left you were drinking a pint of bitter while standing on your head.’
‘You do exaggerate. Why did you go home alone?’
“I have two hungry cats to support. Two thirty is definitely my bedtime.” Then:
’Going with you to a party is to be there alone. You plant me down, go around chatting with everyone, then wonder why I haven’t met them all.’
‘Tonight,’ I said, ‘we’ll go to some quiet place for dinner. Just us.’
‘I’m taking no chances. Tonight I’m cooking you a birthday feast at the flat. I’ll give you all your favourite things.’
‘You will?’
‘To eat.’
‘I’ll be there,’ I said.
‘You’d better be.’
She gave me a perfunctory kiss – ‘Happy birthday’ – and leaned across and put a glass of water and two Alka Seltzer tablets and a glass of water on his blotter.
”Why not put the tablets into the water?’ I asked.
‘I wasn’t sure if you could bear the noise.’ (Bada-boom.)
After while Harry invites Jean to birthday lunch at a favorite Italian restaurant where they drink Pol Roger “between shots of Strega”. When they finally roll back into the office at 3:45 pm, Harry’s boss Dawlish (“who looked like an Edwardian coroner“) ‘rewards’ him by sending him to Finland—tomorrow—in the deep dark of winter to question Finnish journalist Olaf Kaarna, who plans to publish a story about a British global spy network in Northern Europe. Harry is to thwart publication by any means possible. He objects to being chosen for the mission, citing his lack of Finnish language or country knowledge. Quel dommage. He is sent on his way to Whitechapel for a fake passport from Sonny Sontag, who gives him the cover name Liam Dempsey, born in Cork, Ireland. Liam/Harry’s stats: 5', 11", blue eyes, dark-brown hair, dark complexion.
American spy Harvey Newbegin, who was a minor character in Deighton’s “Funeral in Berlin“, has a bigger role here, part of a double-act with Harry. Harvey “had been with the US Defense Department for four years before transferring to the State Department.” Harry had “tried to get him working for his organization at one time”, but Dawlish “had failed to obtain authority” for it.
Each becomes a love interest for statuesque blonde Finnish beauty Signe Laine who tells Liam in perfect English that Professor Kaarna works for her—though she is only 18 years old. She first tells Liam that she works for British Intelligence, but he learns the truth much later in New York City. She seems strangely naive at times but has no problem hopping into bed with married Yank Harvey Newbegin, who is in love with her. Harvey is a “short, thickset man with thinning brown hair”, but who is also an excellent dancer. When Signe brings Liam to a bar to meet Harvey, they find him practicing the rumba alone with drink in hand. ‘Well, you old Limey sonuvabitch. I knew it was you,’ then proceeds to waltz Signe around the room. Harvey recruits Harry for a “quick job that pays well”: carrying a bioweapon (virus) for CIA. The British and the Soviets are also desperate to claim possession of the virus that is incubating inside live unhatched eggs.
Confused yet? Well, just wait. Between the multiple Yank agencies, the British War Office and the small, independent spy agency Harry works for, there is Porton Down (British CBW research facility), two mad scientist brothers, one of whom created the virus, both of whom Harry chases; then Soviets chase Harry and Harvey across snowy, frozen Finland to the USSR border once they are in possession of the viral eggs. Last but not least, an American megalomaniac multimillionaire from Texas named “General” Midwinter (snow and ice appear everywhere in this story) is funding a private army of “patriotic Americans”. (Sounds like Trump’s MAGA Republicans—or, more frighteningly, like his “2025” organization.)
The book gets its title from Midwinter’s super-brain computer that messages workers with their assignments. It gives the novel a futuristic/sci-fi vibe yet retro at the same time (being 1960s analog), a bit more realistic than Austin Powers, but not by much from the vantage point of digital 2024.
The story becomes much more complicated because Harvey and Signe are involved with Midwinter, as well as with each other. Then Harvey’s wife gets in on the action, too. It gets to be a veritable circus of characters. All the while Harry/Liam’s mandate grows ever larger as Dawlish adds more and more tasks.
The novel is worth reading for the dry humor and the retro Cold War, James Bond-ish vibe.
April 4, 2021
Move over Beethoven. I mean John Le Carre. This is RIGHT UP THERE...i was totally into the story, the characters. Terrific spy book and because it was published in 1966 it's pretty amazingly TODAY. The "brain" is a huge computer (like they were in those days, big as a huge room), and there were "car phones" but not iPhones etc. Otherwise, the suspense and love stories and spying and cheating and secrets are very up to date 2020. I like all of Deighton's books, but just found this in a pile of beat up paperbacks in my bedroom, so I blew off the dust and started in. The Chapters are the cities where the action is taking place for that section...London-Helsinki, Leningrad-Riga, New York, San Antonio, London, Helsinki-Leningrad. Deighton seems to really really be familiar with each of the cities, and I felt as if I were back in time, in them. Great characters too.
~ Linda Campbell Franklin
~ Linda Campbell Franklin
January 19, 2014
really enjoyed this book I think the backdrop of cold war paranoia appealed to me as I remembered much of that when growing up in the seventies and eighties and how it fed into popular culture in the form of Bond movies and Frankie goes to Hollywood videos to name but two!!
This is a well-written book and is darker than some spy treatments of the time,there are twists aplenty yet the plot never becomes muddled in itself.
it's a book in some ways low in sensation but high in espionage plotting and it ends in some ways with a whimper rather than a bang..strangely this doesn't affect the book adversely as it enables it to remain realistic in feel.
the copy I had was an old well thumbed penguin copy barely hanging onto any semblance of life..that said its a novel I will pass on to be thumbed through and sellotaped a few last times as its well worth discovery.
This is a well-written book and is darker than some spy treatments of the time,there are twists aplenty yet the plot never becomes muddled in itself.
it's a book in some ways low in sensation but high in espionage plotting and it ends in some ways with a whimper rather than a bang..strangely this doesn't affect the book adversely as it enables it to remain realistic in feel.
the copy I had was an old well thumbed penguin copy barely hanging onto any semblance of life..that said its a novel I will pass on to be thumbed through and sellotaped a few last times as its well worth discovery.
March 9, 2013
The fourth Secret File novel from Deighton, in which the unnamed hero (a.k.a. Harry Palmer) is instructed to investigate and infiltrate a private intelligence organization run by an American anti-Commie billionaire whose agents receive assignments via a massive supercomputer. Also, one such agent – who also happens to be an old friend of Palmer’s – may also be stealing viruses from the British govt, and not necessarily to give to his boss. The computer angle is obviously dated, but I liked the angle of a private spy organization, and it’s got the usual quadruple crosses and twists you’d expect. Anyway, I enjoyed it as much as the other three novels, and I’ll be exploring more Deighton when I can.
December 29, 2015
The fourth of Deighton's "unnamed spy" novels, this is a far more subtle story than the sub-Bondian antics of the film adaptation.
Tasked with infiltrating the private espionage network of General Midwinter (creator of the eponymous Billion Dollar Brain), our protagonist falls in with Harvey Newbegin, one of Midwinter's men in a tale of cross and double-cross involving stolen viruses. The story moves from London to Helsinki, Leningrad, New York, San Antonio and back again. The erstwhile Colonel Stok from Funeral in Berlin also crops up.
At heart this is a tale of friendship and loyalty and what happens when orders from on high force you to betray that friendship. Excellent stuff.
Tasked with infiltrating the private espionage network of General Midwinter (creator of the eponymous Billion Dollar Brain), our protagonist falls in with Harvey Newbegin, one of Midwinter's men in a tale of cross and double-cross involving stolen viruses. The story moves from London to Helsinki, Leningrad, New York, San Antonio and back again. The erstwhile Colonel Stok from Funeral in Berlin also crops up.
At heart this is a tale of friendship and loyalty and what happens when orders from on high force you to betray that friendship. Excellent stuff.
September 2, 2012
Not my favourite of the four unnamed agent books, but still a very good read. The film was spoilt by being over the top in parts, but beautifully filmed in others!
This was one of the books that Deighton introduced an error, intentional I assume, concerning drinks.
The characters Newbegin, Signe and the unnamed agent, start off with a whisky in chapter 3.
One page on Newbegin finishes his vodka with no mention inbetween, of a change.
Another book describes two characters drinking Dutch gin, they finish, the glasses are washed up and put away. A few paragraphs later one of the characters finishes his drink, again!
This was one of the books that Deighton introduced an error, intentional I assume, concerning drinks.
The characters Newbegin, Signe and the unnamed agent, start off with a whisky in chapter 3.
One page on Newbegin finishes his vodka with no mention inbetween, of a change.
Another book describes two characters drinking Dutch gin, they finish, the glasses are washed up and put away. A few paragraphs later one of the characters finishes his drink, again!
October 21, 2013
A fantastic Cold War spy thriller. Better than some of Deighton's earlier "unnamed spy" books; clearer in its descriptions, tidier with its characterizations. Deighton writes with fantastic economy of style, glazing over passages of time or periods of transit with a few quick sentences to get to the good stuff: the intrigue, the girls, the danger, the high stakes, the world-weary cynicism.
November 1, 2015
A good technophobic exploration into the inadequacies of computer technology in the fraught conditions of the secret service and KGB. The inability of computers to improvise was made clear by this valuable text. It missed a higher rating only marginally. The descriptive elements of this book are beautifully crafted, and it is apparent that his career in food writing is influential.
October 2, 2013
A plot is afoot to distribute a plague virus throughout the world. In play are a civilian "anti-terrorist" group, and intelligence groups from both England and the United States as well as Russia. A wonderful 1960s thriller.
November 15, 2011
A classic spy story and wonderfully written.
December 24, 2014
Just scrapes a four star rating: too much jet-setting left me jet-lagged..!
February 16, 2015
Superb. Beautifully written. Harvey is a sympathetic character even if he is deadly.
February 24, 2016
The best one of these.
November 14, 2021
Fantastic book! Cold war meets the early days of the internet - or at least a form of artificial intelligence. The hero is very cool in a nineteen sixties way. Recommended!
July 29, 2024
In this last adventure of the nameless spy (called "Harry Palmer" in the film version of this and two other books, and so called as such in my review just for the heck of it) journeys to Latvia, Russia, and Finland to uncover a deadly plot that threatens the whole world, and all at the instigation of a delusional American billionaire who has raised a private army.
"Billion-Dollar Brain" isn't the strongest of Len Deighton's "Harry Palmer" series, but the writing is top-notch throughout out. Again, as with the other three books, it's Harry's voice that carries the day, even if the plot seems a little far-fetched at times. Through his friend Harvey, Harry is "recruited" into the efforts of General Midwinter, a bizarre rich man with a desire to overthrow the Soviet Union, using biological weapons primarily. Plus, Midwinter has a giant computer (the "brain" of the title) that will detail missions for his underlings and tell them things that no human mind could betray.
The plot is a world-beater, with Harry traveling to Helsinki, Leningrad, New York, Texas, and back again, all in an effort to foil Midwinter's scheme and to see just what Harvey, an ally and friend, is actually up to. It turns out that Harvey has a significant relationship with Signe, a Finnish woman who also works for Midwinter, and he also has ulterior motives for bringing Harry into the caper. Palmer, who is of course actually working on behalf of British intelligence, has to sort through the tangled webs of what seems to be happening to find out the truth. And that truth will cost him, as well as others.
This isn't the strongest of the Harry Palmer series, in fact it's probably the weakest. But it still feels like a fun ride through a funhouse-mirror version of James Bond (a middle-class working-stiff version of the super spy). I really think Deighton's gift here is the narrative voice or Harry, who just oozes with wit and charm even as he's getting the piss kicked out of him. Characters can make even a flimsy plot work, and Harry Palmer is a character for the ages. "Billion-Dollar Brain" has some entertaining moments, and even if the plot doesn't quite work, Harry's voice does, every time and in every sentence.
"Billion-Dollar Brain" isn't the strongest of Len Deighton's "Harry Palmer" series, but the writing is top-notch throughout out. Again, as with the other three books, it's Harry's voice that carries the day, even if the plot seems a little far-fetched at times. Through his friend Harvey, Harry is "recruited" into the efforts of General Midwinter, a bizarre rich man with a desire to overthrow the Soviet Union, using biological weapons primarily. Plus, Midwinter has a giant computer (the "brain" of the title) that will detail missions for his underlings and tell them things that no human mind could betray.
The plot is a world-beater, with Harry traveling to Helsinki, Leningrad, New York, Texas, and back again, all in an effort to foil Midwinter's scheme and to see just what Harvey, an ally and friend, is actually up to. It turns out that Harvey has a significant relationship with Signe, a Finnish woman who also works for Midwinter, and he also has ulterior motives for bringing Harry into the caper. Palmer, who is of course actually working on behalf of British intelligence, has to sort through the tangled webs of what seems to be happening to find out the truth. And that truth will cost him, as well as others.
This isn't the strongest of the Harry Palmer series, in fact it's probably the weakest. But it still feels like a fun ride through a funhouse-mirror version of James Bond (a middle-class working-stiff version of the super spy). I really think Deighton's gift here is the narrative voice or Harry, who just oozes with wit and charm even as he's getting the piss kicked out of him. Characters can make even a flimsy plot work, and Harry Palmer is a character for the ages. "Billion-Dollar Brain" has some entertaining moments, and even if the plot doesn't quite work, Harry's voice does, every time and in every sentence.
June 22, 2022
Ondanks zijn hoge leeftijd (93) is Len Deighton nu nog altijd in leven, maar dit boek dateert uit zijn meest succesvolle periode (de jaren zestig) toen bijna al zijn werken verfilmd werden met Michael Caine in de hoofdrol.
Die hoofdrol is dan weggelegd voor Harry Palmer, maar die naam komt uit de films, in de romans zelf komt hij niet voor. The academic Clive Bloom considers that Deighton “established a place for himself … in the front rank of the spy genre, along with Graham Greene, Ian Fleming and John le Carré“. Gezien de tijdsomstandigheden betekent dit dus vooral dat het om de Koude Oorlog draait, een thema dat mij hoegenaamd niet interesseert. Toch heb ik het boek graag gelezen en dat heeft dan alles met de stijl van Deighton te maken: onderkoeld, met veel droge humor. Dat komt dan vooral tot zijn recht bij de ik-persoon, waarvan film and media historian Alan Burton, zegt "that it brought in a more insolent, disillusioned and cynical style to the espionage story”. Dat cynisme kan wel soms heel ver gaan, cfr. de dood van één van de hoofdpersonages in de finale.
Ook opvallend is de rol van de vrouwen. Bijna het hele boek lang zijn zij zo goed als onbestaand, tenzij dan als “love interest” of eerder nog “sex interest”. Maar op het einde blijkt dan dat zij achter de schermen zowat de touwtjes in handen houden en vaak zijn de mannen enkel maar hun “puppets on a string”…
The story introduced a working class protagonist, cynical and tough. Academic George Grella considers Deighton to be “the angry young man of the espionage novel”, maar zelf ziet Deighton the character not as an anti-hero, but as “a romantic, incorruptible figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe”.
Deighton does not like giving interviews, and these have been rare throughout his life; he also avoids appearing at literary festivals. “The best thing about writing books” aldus Deighton “is being at a party and telling some pretty girl you write books, the worst thing is sitting at a typewriter and actually writing the book.”
Die hoofdrol is dan weggelegd voor Harry Palmer, maar die naam komt uit de films, in de romans zelf komt hij niet voor. The academic Clive Bloom considers that Deighton “established a place for himself … in the front rank of the spy genre, along with Graham Greene, Ian Fleming and John le Carré“. Gezien de tijdsomstandigheden betekent dit dus vooral dat het om de Koude Oorlog draait, een thema dat mij hoegenaamd niet interesseert. Toch heb ik het boek graag gelezen en dat heeft dan alles met de stijl van Deighton te maken: onderkoeld, met veel droge humor. Dat komt dan vooral tot zijn recht bij de ik-persoon, waarvan film and media historian Alan Burton, zegt "that it brought in a more insolent, disillusioned and cynical style to the espionage story”. Dat cynisme kan wel soms heel ver gaan, cfr. de dood van één van de hoofdpersonages in de finale.
Ook opvallend is de rol van de vrouwen. Bijna het hele boek lang zijn zij zo goed als onbestaand, tenzij dan als “love interest” of eerder nog “sex interest”. Maar op het einde blijkt dan dat zij achter de schermen zowat de touwtjes in handen houden en vaak zijn de mannen enkel maar hun “puppets on a string”…
The story introduced a working class protagonist, cynical and tough. Academic George Grella considers Deighton to be “the angry young man of the espionage novel”, maar zelf ziet Deighton the character not as an anti-hero, but as “a romantic, incorruptible figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe”.
Deighton does not like giving interviews, and these have been rare throughout his life; he also avoids appearing at literary festivals. “The best thing about writing books” aldus Deighton “is being at a party and telling some pretty girl you write books, the worst thing is sitting at a typewriter and actually writing the book.”
December 17, 2025
I’ve said this before, but Len Deighton, for my money, deserves to be at the top of a very crowded field and posterity has not served him well. He’s every bit as savvy as Le Carre, and frankly his writing style and plots are sharp and edgy. While I love Le Carre, he can tend to meander and George Smiley, is well, often too smiley. Deighton nameless British spy is more like Philip Marlowe, taciturn, sarcastic and sometimes Brutal.
This one was actually made into a great film in 1967 starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer (I think they had to give him a name for the movie, in the books he goes by his many aliases).
Written about the same time, the plot is prescient in predicting that people with too much money and the right technology (maybe right wing technology) think they can dictate foreign policy and wage war with the enemy, in this case the Soviet Union and Communism. It is up to the anonymous guys in the trenches doing the dirty work to clean up the messes, and save the world from rich idiots. (Are you listening Elon????)
It has a great cast of very odd quirky and fun characters if somewhat psychotic which Deighton handles with a deft touch so as not to make them farcical. (Are you listening Mick Herron???)
In lesser hands, this could easily be one of those books in today’s world would seem dated and cliche but for me it is ever bit as relevant now as it was then.
This one was actually made into a great film in 1967 starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer (I think they had to give him a name for the movie, in the books he goes by his many aliases).
Written about the same time, the plot is prescient in predicting that people with too much money and the right technology (maybe right wing technology) think they can dictate foreign policy and wage war with the enemy, in this case the Soviet Union and Communism. It is up to the anonymous guys in the trenches doing the dirty work to clean up the messes, and save the world from rich idiots. (Are you listening Elon????)
It has a great cast of very odd quirky and fun characters if somewhat psychotic which Deighton handles with a deft touch so as not to make them farcical. (Are you listening Mick Herron???)
In lesser hands, this could easily be one of those books in today’s world would seem dated and cliche but for me it is ever bit as relevant now as it was then.
December 2, 2024
Billion-Dollar Brain (1966) is my last "unnamed protagonist" Len Deighton novel. It is also one of the best.
Spoiler: "Liam Dempsey" thwarts a pseudo-Bircher fomenting WW3 in the Baltic republics.
"Dempsey" is up to his usual tricks against some really hateful egomaniacs, particularly a maniacal female.named Signe. And his old pal Harvey Newbigen, a fine Ugly American from Deighton's pen.
Harvey knows "Dempsey":
"[....] What iambic pentameter was to Shakespeare, so lying is to him.’"
"Dempsey" sees the equation clearly: U.S. billionaire anticommunists plus contagious lab-bred fever eggs equal anti-Soviet aggression.
The glossaries are imperishable cold war primary sources.
These novels are more important historical markers than Matt Helm, James Bond, and George Smiley.
* * *
The more of these novels I read, the wiser Dawlish seems:
‘The operation was successful,’ Dawlish said as though explaining to a child.
I said, ‘The operation was successful but the patient died.’
‘You mustn’t ask for too much. Success is just a state of mind. We don’t get called in until there has already been a failure somewhere. The trouble with young people nowadays is that they worship success. Don’t be so ambitious.’
Spoiler: "Liam Dempsey" thwarts a pseudo-Bircher fomenting WW3 in the Baltic republics.
"Dempsey" is up to his usual tricks against some really hateful egomaniacs, particularly a maniacal female.named Signe. And his old pal Harvey Newbigen, a fine Ugly American from Deighton's pen.
Harvey knows "Dempsey":
"[....] What iambic pentameter was to Shakespeare, so lying is to him.’"
"Dempsey" sees the equation clearly: U.S. billionaire anticommunists plus contagious lab-bred fever eggs equal anti-Soviet aggression.
The glossaries are imperishable cold war primary sources.
These novels are more important historical markers than Matt Helm, James Bond, and George Smiley.
* * *
The more of these novels I read, the wiser Dawlish seems:
‘The operation was successful,’ Dawlish said as though explaining to a child.
I said, ‘The operation was successful but the patient died.’
‘You mustn’t ask for too much. Success is just a state of mind. We don’t get called in until there has already been a failure somewhere. The trouble with young people nowadays is that they worship success. Don’t be so ambitious.’
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2024
Billion-Dollar Brain (1966) is my last "unnamed protagonist" Len Deighton novel. It is also one of the best.
Spoiler: "Liam Dempsey" thwarts a pseudo-Bircher fomenting WW3 in the Baltic republics.
"Dempsey" is up to his usual tricks against some really hateful egomaniacs, particularly a maniacal female.named Signe. And his old pal Harvey Newbigen, a fine Ugly American from Deighton's pen.
Harvey knows "Dempsey":
"[....] What iambic pentameter was to Shakespeare, so lying is to him.’"
"Dempsey" sees the equation clearly: U.S. billionaire anticommunists plus contagious lab-bred fever eggs equal anti-Soviet aggression.
The glossaries are imperishable cold war primary sources.
These novels are more important historical markers than Matt Helm, James Bond, and George Smiley.
* * *
The more of these novels I read, the wiser Dawlish seems:
‘The operation was successful,’ Dawlish said as though explaining to a child.
I said, ‘The operation was successful but the patient died.’
‘You mustn’t ask for too much. Success is just a state of mind. We don’t get called in until there has already been a failure somewhere. The trouble with young people nowadays is that they worship success. Don’t be so ambitious.’
Spoiler: "Liam Dempsey" thwarts a pseudo-Bircher fomenting WW3 in the Baltic republics.
"Dempsey" is up to his usual tricks against some really hateful egomaniacs, particularly a maniacal female.named Signe. And his old pal Harvey Newbigen, a fine Ugly American from Deighton's pen.
Harvey knows "Dempsey":
"[....] What iambic pentameter was to Shakespeare, so lying is to him.’"
"Dempsey" sees the equation clearly: U.S. billionaire anticommunists plus contagious lab-bred fever eggs equal anti-Soviet aggression.
The glossaries are imperishable cold war primary sources.
These novels are more important historical markers than Matt Helm, James Bond, and George Smiley.
* * *
The more of these novels I read, the wiser Dawlish seems:
‘The operation was successful,’ Dawlish said as though explaining to a child.
I said, ‘The operation was successful but the patient died.’
‘You mustn’t ask for too much. Success is just a state of mind. We don’t get called in until there has already been a failure somewhere. The trouble with young people nowadays is that they worship success. Don’t be so ambitious.’
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 18, 2025
The opening one of the most memorable ever: "It was the morning of my hundredth birthday. I shaved the final mirror-disc of old tired face under the merciless glare of the bathroom lighting. It was all very well telling oneself that Humphrey Bogart had that sort of face; but he also had a hairpiece, half a million dollars a year and a stand-in for the rough bits."
The actual scheme in this book escaped me; I don't really know what happened in which branch of espionage, and whether the end was happy or not. But even though I could barely follow the development, the book was a pleasure to read. Deighton writes so well. His writing is like in "a good book," which many people only claim to enjoy, but the writing isn't everything.
When I was much younger, I waded through the Finnish version of this one because a) my brother liked it, and b) Finland was featured so prominently. This English version seemed much longer!
The actual scheme in this book escaped me; I don't really know what happened in which branch of espionage, and whether the end was happy or not. But even though I could barely follow the development, the book was a pleasure to read. Deighton writes so well. His writing is like in "a good book," which many people only claim to enjoy, but the writing isn't everything.
When I was much younger, I waded through the Finnish version of this one because a) my brother liked it, and b) Finland was featured so prominently. This English version seemed much longer!
March 22, 2021
This was the first Len Deighton novel I read. Not too bad. A pretty straight-up spy novel, well told. I think I liked it more than Fleming's Casino Royale (but don't tell Ian Fleming that.) I felt the novel was much better than the film. Don't get me wrong, the film's okay, but it was a touch too camp to my tastes.
The story involves a few twists that you have to look out for. Are the Russians going to kill our anonymous narrator? Are the British? Maybe the Texans will. It seemed realistic in the sense the main characters were all looking out for their own interests; I appreciated that. Never trust a spy, unless you know you're interests are aligned, I guess.
Worth a read if you're a spy-thriller person though it's quite a bit lighter fare than John le Carre or Tom Clancy. On par with Fleming.
The story involves a few twists that you have to look out for. Are the Russians going to kill our anonymous narrator? Are the British? Maybe the Texans will. It seemed realistic in the sense the main characters were all looking out for their own interests; I appreciated that. Never trust a spy, unless you know you're interests are aligned, I guess.
Worth a read if you're a spy-thriller person though it's quite a bit lighter fare than John le Carre or Tom Clancy. On par with Fleming.
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