Book Review: Berlin Game

This is such a wonderful book.

I first read this work about forty years ago and I watched the TV series starring Ian Holm and Mel Martin (I think). In other words, I know the ending but even so this is such a wonderful story.

I read all the Len Deighton books before I read any of John Le Carre’s work. I think Deighton and Le Carre are equally good.

Bernard Samson is lower down the spying pole than George Smiley but he’s equally as smart and knows his job. In this book, it becomes clear there’s a mole in the higher echelons of UK intelligence in London and Samson gradually realises who this person is.

This book covers the undercover work of being an intelligence agent at the sharp end of the spying network, where spies are discovered and either prosecuted or turned. People are arrested and assassinated. Samson has to head to East Berlin to help remove a long-term agent before the Stasi / KGB kill him. He also knows the mole in London will be exposed by his mission.