Great book. To discuss it all I’m going to have to give away bits of the ending and things that happen along the way, and as it’s a book about spies, I should warn you: here be spoilers. Just so you know.
Bernard Samson, a well-established and senior, but not director-level, member of the SIS is disturbed to find that one of the service’s best agents in East Berlin, codenamed Brahms 4, wants to defect. Wants to go urgently. He’s not alone in his disquiet, the rest of the department is worried too. He’s despatched to Germany to asses the situation.
Evidence builds that there is a traitor in the London office and a process of discovery begins, and the irascible, grumpy Samson has to protect himself as well as discover whether Brahms’ desire to defect is genuine, then get him out if it is. In the end he sends him out first, allowing himself to be arrested by the East Germans and discovering the London-based double agent in the process. Having been through his senior colleagues, he realises that it’s his wife, Fiona, who is the traitor.
The picture of spying here is one of profoundly personal relationships. Samson and Brahms have known each other for years and most of the fixing and organisation in Berlin is performed by Werner Volkmann, a banker who Samson grew up with. The motivations for engaging in the business are all entirely human (mainly egotistical) and actions, even tiny gestures and affectations, are explained in terms of their meaning and what the actor wishes to demonstrate.
Samson’s hatred of people with little practical experience grows out of his knowledge that high-minded politics couldn’t be further from the everyday business of espionage, and that the people involved meeting in publics quares and sitting, cold, tired and bored, in cars in the middle fo the night are the important players rather than the men in Savile Row suits in expensively-decorated offices. But then he would think that, wouldn’t he.
The public but secret politics of east vs west are contrasted with the private politics of the SIS offices and their agents. The power structure within the SIS is built partly in the office, partly at weekend parties and in clubs and bars. The structure of information gathering is built with personal friendships and family links. The aims of the department are not only secondary to an individual’s aims, they are inextricably bound up together.
Fiona’s defection clearly marks a point in Samson’s personal and professional life that will be influential later on. The next two books are piled up next to me waiting to be read.
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2 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.I’m so glad you liked Berlin Game. The entire series is great, although the last three books (Faith, Hope, Charity) don’t *quite* match the earlier ones. The second set (Hook, Line, Sinker) is superb.
Really looking forward to hearing how you get on with Mexico Set and London Match.
I’ve finished Mexico Set (review is pending), which I thought was even better than Berlin Game. Greatly looking forward to London Match, but I have some worthy books on the history of computer science to get through first. I bet you’re all on the edges of your seats waiting for those to be written up.
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