Scan barcode
A review by brettt
SS-GB by Len Deighton
3.0
Len Deighton did not mess around with a Nazi plot to damage the U.S. or a British peace treaty with Germany -- he posited a successful German invasion of Great Britain that resulted in complete surrender and occupation in 1941. The Nazis work in Whitehall, King George is locked away and Winston Churchill has been executed. But there are still crimes in London, and there is still Scotland Yard around to solve them, in spy novelist Len Deighton's 1978 SS-GB.
Douglas Archer is one of the Yard's keenest minds, but even he is unsure about a man murdered in a London flat which is obviously not his own. There is no identification on the man and there are no clues about his death, but even so the new German masters of the Yard seem very interested in the case. That could make Archer's work easier, or more difficult, depending on what he finds. And depending on whether other interested parties let him live long enough to find anything at all.
SS-GB is as much a mystery thriller as anything else. Different details about how Archer has to go about his business in a bombed and occupied London, and about what underground resistance fighters are trying to do give the book its other-history character, but the core is how Archer finds himself manipulated by people playing a much larger game than he realizes. This is often a theme for Deighton, who sees espionage as a matter in which those in the front are often working for people they don't know who have agendas they would never dream of. They will be the ones who risk everything, even though the cause for which they do so might turn out to be less of a truth than they realize.
Some of SS-GB runs improbably quickly, such as Archer's love interest and his own connection to the underground resistance, and some of the rest is sketched out less thoroughly than is best for the story. Deighton's never been one for bloat, but SS-GB could have used a sandwich or two to help its appearance. It's still a great read and a testament to Deighton's grasp of the ins and outs of espionage and the bureaucratic mess that often lies behind the cloak and dagger in the field.
Original available here.
Douglas Archer is one of the Yard's keenest minds, but even he is unsure about a man murdered in a London flat which is obviously not his own. There is no identification on the man and there are no clues about his death, but even so the new German masters of the Yard seem very interested in the case. That could make Archer's work easier, or more difficult, depending on what he finds. And depending on whether other interested parties let him live long enough to find anything at all.
SS-GB is as much a mystery thriller as anything else. Different details about how Archer has to go about his business in a bombed and occupied London, and about what underground resistance fighters are trying to do give the book its other-history character, but the core is how Archer finds himself manipulated by people playing a much larger game than he realizes. This is often a theme for Deighton, who sees espionage as a matter in which those in the front are often working for people they don't know who have agendas they would never dream of. They will be the ones who risk everything, even though the cause for which they do so might turn out to be less of a truth than they realize.
Some of SS-GB runs improbably quickly, such as Archer's love interest and his own connection to the underground resistance, and some of the rest is sketched out less thoroughly than is best for the story. Deighton's never been one for bloat, but SS-GB could have used a sandwich or two to help its appearance. It's still a great read and a testament to Deighton's grasp of the ins and outs of espionage and the bureaucratic mess that often lies behind the cloak and dagger in the field.
Original available here.