As with my posts about the previous two books in this trilogy, there are going to be spoilers below. Go and read London Match, it’s excellent, if you want to read any further.
Really. I’ll just spoil it, and that would be a shame. Don’t click through unless you’ve already read it.
The plot carries on directly from Berlin Game. A swanky party in Berlin sees Bernard Samson and Werner Volkmann following a lead on a British woman, an agent for the KGB, who could confirm information about Erich Stinnes, the recently defected Russian Bernard had been pursuing in Mexico Set.
They find her, they interrogate her, and the arc that sees Samson being unwittingly led through his wife’s plot to cast suspicion on important members of the London Central office begins.
Throughout the book there are key themes, particularly the roles of knowledge and skill, and the possibility of them being trumped by ambition and influence. Bernard is the one with the ability and field experience, but Dicky Cruyer, Bret Rensselaer and particularly Morgan, the director general’s hated personal assistant, have more influence because of their office skills.
Morgan is singled out for the most scorn as he does not deal with espionage at all, he’s an office assistant who sits in on meetings to take notes but then chips in as an equal. Every hackle in the room (except the D-G’s) rise as one, but no words are said. The man with no experience is in line to run the department but even Bernard keeps quiet as he can’t risk upsetting his boss. There are several unflattering character portraits of the members of London Central in the three books, all making it clear that these are hateful, pretentious, self-serving people, but only Morgan is compared to a Nazi (Martin Bormann, Hitler’s conniving secretary) in this profoundly anti-Nazi series.
The heavily biased narrative heaps disgrace on those with no proctical knowledge. Unnecessary death follows them, as do leaks and indiscretion.
But it’s Samson himself who is being deceived most thoroughly. His wife, Fiona, is feeding him Stinnes, his prize from Mexico, and Carol Miller, the English woman he arrests in Berlin, is another plant. Samson is pulled along into believing that Bret Rensellaer is a second agent in London Central, and makes him convince anyone he can find that this must be the case. The department totters under the weight of the doubt and intrigue brought about by Samson’s own inverted snobbery and arrogant self-belief that has sustained him through countless cold nights in Berlin.
Disaster is averted, mostly through Rensellaer’s willingness to submit to Samson’s ego and allow him to take the dominant role, and Bernard comes to see how he’s been manipulated. He takes comfort in the continuous nature of the struggle, in a deeply satisfying and surprising end to what has been an excellent set of books.
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