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A review by phileasfogg
Horse under Water by Len Deighton
4.0
This is the second in Len Deighton's 'nameless spy' series. (The notion that they're narrated by a real spy recounting real cases that have become unclassified is supported by his never saying his name in the books. In the movies based on some of the books, he's called Harry Palmer.)
This was fun, mainly thanks to the narrator's lightly comic style. As a thriller, it might not satisfy modern fans of that genre - there are thrills, but there are also lengthy sequences of good non-thrill storytelling, involving the interactions between the hero and the team he leads in the search of a sunken German U-boat, and the various parties who take an occasionally homicidal interest in the search.
At the start of the book the hero has to take a Navy training course in diving. It's much more effective for suspense to make the hero a novice who's only just learned how to dive, than to make him the effortless expert in everything that less thoughtful thrillers would.
The core idea of the book is that spying is a thinking job, not a feeling one. The hero refuses to behave like a spy in a spy story, sometimes to the distaste of his more warm-blooded colleagues. When his secretary/girlfriend Jean expresses a desire for revenge against their friend's killer:
I liked the new boss of WOOC(P), Dawlish. The hero takes so much pleasure in watching Dawlish manipulate the bureaucracy, he could almost lose his cred as the rebellious chippy anti-establishment spy hero. Fortunately there's a slimy cabinet minister for him to be suitably disrespectful to.
This was fun, mainly thanks to the narrator's lightly comic style. As a thriller, it might not satisfy modern fans of that genre - there are thrills, but there are also lengthy sequences of good non-thrill storytelling, involving the interactions between the hero and the team he leads in the search of a sunken German U-boat, and the various parties who take an occasionally homicidal interest in the search.
At the start of the book the hero has to take a Navy training course in diving. It's much more effective for suspense to make the hero a novice who's only just learned how to dive, than to make him the effortless expert in everything that less thoughtful thrillers would.
The core idea of the book is that spying is a thinking job, not a feeling one. The hero refuses to behave like a spy in a spy story, sometimes to the distaste of his more warm-blooded colleagues. When his secretary/girlfriend Jean expresses a desire for revenge against their friend's killer:
'I'll forget that you spoke.' I looked at her for a moment, then said, 'If you want to keep working in the department you'll never even think a thing like that, let alone say it. There is no room for heroics, vendettas and associated melodramas in an efficient shop. You stand up, get shot at, then carry on quietly. [...] Don't desire vengeance or think that if someone murders you tomorrow we will be tracking them down mercilessly. We won't. We'll all be strictly concerned with keeping out of the News of the World and the Police Gazette.'
I liked the new boss of WOOC(P), Dawlish. The hero takes so much pleasure in watching Dawlish manipulate the bureaucracy, he could almost lose his cred as the rebellious chippy anti-establishment spy hero. Fortunately there's a slimy cabinet minister for him to be suitably disrespectful to.
'No one owns a spy, mister,' I told him, 'they just pay his salary. I work for the government because I think this is a good place to live, but that doesn't mean that I'll be used as a serf by a self-centred millionaire.'