Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36928 in Books
• Published on: 1976-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Customer Reviews

Clever, knowledgeable, hugely enjoyable
Synopsis: an un-named agent is sent to Portugal to deal with large amounts of false banknotes coming ashore; this fake money could be used to fund groups opposing the Salazar dictatorship. But many people are interested in the source of the false notes, and this source turns out to hold more than just money...

This is the second instalment of four books about the unnamed WOOC(P) agent: Ipcress File came first, and Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain are 3rd and 4th.

I don't give five stars easily - but this is beautifully structured, clever, knowledgeable, with sardonic humour, comments on class, street-wise.... it is cool. Is it dated, seeing it was published in 1963? Oh yes, in that there are no mobile phones, Portugal is still a dictatorship, and there are three-penny pieces. No, in that the language is taut and pretty timeless, conversations feel just right and the jokes still work, as do the observations - "window display men were junking polystyrene X-mas trees, and ordering gambolling lambs."
The un-named agent (called harry Palmer in the movies) has been compared to James Bond. Utter nonsense - he is lower class, a lot smarter, and the writing is incomparibly better than that of Fleming. The writing is clever, very clever, and much is left unsaid, just inferred. The book is also very good on power structures and power games, hidden politics, illegal gold dies, wartime meteorology and secretaries - and much else. If anybody is writing thrillers in 2009 as good as Deighton did in '63, tell me; because I have not found them, yet.