Berlin Game

Template:Book-in-universe Berlin Game is a 1983 spy novel by Len Deighton.

Plot summary

Brahms Four wants out. This alarming signal—it means that one of Britain's most reliable, most valuable agents behind the Iron Curtain is urgently demanding safe passage to the West—sends a ripple of panic through the highest levels of the British secret service. And—appropriately—it has fallen to Bernard Samson, himself once active in the field (his territory, Eastern Europe), but now anchored behind a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. After all, it was Brahms Four who had once, nearly twenty years ago, rescued him.

But even before Samson sets out on his mission, he is confronted with inescapable evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues—a traitor planted by Moscow Centre. Clearly, it is someone close to the top, close to Samson himself. It could by Dicky Cruyer, his immediate supervisor—the Department Wunderkind—whom Samson despises. It could be the American Bret Rensselaer, who has built his entire career around the work of Brahms Four—and who is spending an inordinate amount of time with Samson's wife, Fiona (she too is an intelligence officer). It could be Frank Harrington, the man in charge (for the moment) of the agency's office in Berlin. It could be Giles Trent—except that his connection to the KGB seems almost too obvious. It could be any member of the senior staff at London Central—even the Director-General himself...

Through brilliantly etched scenes of suspense—as we follow Samson into the center of a web of lies, time-honored assumptions, and intramural intrigues that mask the traitor's identity—the novel moves between London and Berlin (East, as well as West) until, at last, the mists of secrecy that have cloaked both past and present are dissolved... and hero and traitor collide.

This novel is part of a trilogy, which has a prequel, called Winter. The second novel in the trilogy is Mexico Set; the last is London Match.

Years after its publication, the BBC made a film version of the trilogy, called Game, Set, and Match, starring Ian Holm as Bernard Samson and Mel Martin as Fiona. It was adapted by John Howlett and directed by Ken Grieve and Patrick Lau. It is not easy to find: Netflix doesn't have it, nor do most libraries.

Other

In the novel is an early mention of the urban legend that President John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" remark actually translated to "I am a jelly doughnut." In Berlin Game, the character Bernard Samson is told that he is berlinerisch:

"'Ich bin ein Berliner,' I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts." Len Deighton, Berlin Game, reprinted in Game, Set, Match (1986), page 85.

In the preface to the reprint, Deighton notes that the novel is told in the highly subjective voice of the character of Bernard Samson, "who is inclined to complain and exaggerate so that we have to interpret the world around him." The author says that "Readers who take Bernard’s words literally are missing a lot of the intended content."

In a related novel, Deighton reminded his readers that the views of the characters were not necessarily those of the writer. Winter (1987), page preceding page 1, quoting James Jones: "...readers should remember that the opinions expressed by the characters are not necessarily those of the author...".

See also

• Ich bin ein Berliner