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Berlin Game

Penguin Modern Classics

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Berlin Game

By: Len Deighton
Narrated by: James Lailey
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Embattled agent Bernard Samson is used to being passed over for promotion as his younger, more ambitious colleagues - including his own wife Fiona - rise up the ranks of MI6. When a valued agent in East Berlin warns the British of a mole at the heart of the Service, Samson must return to the field and the city he loves to uncover the traitor's identity. This is the first novel in Len Deighton's acclaimed, Game, Set and Match trilogy.

A BERNARD SAMSON NOVEL

'Masterly ... dazzlingly intelligent and subtle' Sunday Times

'Deighton's best novel to date - sharp, witty and sour, like Raymond Chandler adapted to British gloom and the multiple betrayals of the spy' Observer

© Len Deighton 1983 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Espionage Genre Fiction Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense
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Critics' reviews

The Berlin Game trilogy made lockdown possible. (Olivia Laing)
Deighton's outstanding achievement is the nine-volume series chronicling the life and times of Bernard Samson ... Deighton's Samson trilogies are as much about the elusiveness of human interactions as espionage. Spying is not a secret world sealed off from ordinary life but an extension of the world we all live in. (John Gray)
Spying at its most captivating and intricate. (Marcel Berlins)
Deighton's best novel to date - sharp, witty and sour, like Raymond Chandler adapted to British gloom and the multiple betrayals of the private spy.
Virtuoso top level performance.
Sheer consistent rightness page after page after page.
A labyrinthine espionage epic lightened with laconic wit. (Jeremy Duns)
Deighton, as always, makes the familiar twists and turns of spy errantry new again, partly by his grip of narrative, partly by his grasp of character, and partly by his easy, sardonic tone.
Len Deighton's spy novels are so good they make me sad the Cold War is over. (Malcolm Gladwell)
All stars
Most relevant
Having just finished listening to Berlin Game I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Characters, plot and setting are extremely well portrayed. I first read the novel in the late 1980s and I remember the time very well. Deighton captures the mood very accurately. Unlike other efforts from this time period, Berlin Game has aged incredibly well. I strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the Cold War or simply looking for a good story. I look forward to revisiting Mexico Set. May I add I also enjoyed the reading by James Lailey.

Very good story

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Len Deighton, still alive at 93, may not be the most talked-about novelist of the past decades, but his spy fiction - sadly, largely unavailable in German translation - is up there with the very best. His prose is tight, witty, and precise, apart from the swiftly paced action and great descriptions of place in his novels. What makes the Penguin audio versions so brilliant, though, is the beautifully modulated voice of British actor James Lailey who manages to give every character a unique tone, posh mannerisms and London class distinctions included, and is simply outstanding doing foreign accents. These audio books are not to be missed - I could listen to James Lailey forever. Most likely you'll get hooked the way I was.

A gem of the spy genre, beautifully read

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The Reading is really terrible. Every Character Sounds the Same. The Reader would probably read a dinosaur and a 4 year old Girl wih the Same Voice and Intonation, which By the way Drops at every sentence into a quieteness almost impossible to hear. Wanted to like the Book and could Not Even finish it due to the inferior Reading.

Poor Reading

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