Berlin Game (Bernard Samson, #1) in Espionage Aficionados

Dec 05, 2015 Bradley West rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers, favorites

What a great start to the Bernard Samson series, so much so that my appetite for more titles sustained me through the very good "Mexico Set" and then the less intriguing "London Match". Like many of Deighton's works, his deep knowledge of Berlin gives the reader a you-are-there experience. The complex relationships in head office, his doubts about his wife and the pressure of the field all play credibly through Samson's mind.

Meanwhile, there's a British mole to be extracted from the East while t ...more

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Jan 29, 2022 Bill Fairclough rated it it was amazing

Len Deighton's novels are mostly brilliant and, inter alia, they inspired me to write Beyond Enkription, the first of six stand-alone fact based novels in The Burlington Files series based on my life.

I find it amusing that some critics have described me as "the posh Harry Palmer" in Beyond Enkription, the first of six stand-alone fact based spy novels in The Burlington Files series based on my life!

PS I am aware that Len Deighton did not refer to the protagonist in several of his novels includin ...more

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Apr 18, 2019 Michael Martz rated it it was amazing

'Berlin Game' was a revelation for me, a long time fan of the spy genre who'd never cracked open a novel by one of its masters, Len Deighton. I love Cold War-era stories with lower tech spycraft and character driven plots, and this is a great example of that type of novel.

Bernard Samson is an older Brit spy, Berlin born, fluent in German, highly experienced, yet chained to a London desk. A British asset who is relatively high up in the East German government gets a little shaky after providing g ...more

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