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Horse Under Water
By Len Deighton
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The dead hand of a long-defeated Nazi Third Reich reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech in Deighton’s second novel, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File, but finds Dawlish now head of the secret British Intelligence unit, WOOC(P).
The Ipcress File was a debut sensation. Here in the second Secret File, Horse under Water, skin-diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which the dead hand of a long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today’s Europe.
The detail is frightening but unfaultable; the story as up to date as ever it was. The un-named hero of The Ipcress File the same: insolent, fallible, capricious – in other words, human. But he must draw on all his abilities, good and bad, when plunged into a story of murder, betrayal and greed every bit as murky as the waters off the coast of Portugal, where the answers lie buried.
Book Actions
Start ReadingBook Information
Horse Under Water
By Len Deighton
Description
The dead hand of a long-defeated Nazi Third Reich reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech in Deighton’s second novel, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File, but finds Dawlish now head of the secret British Intelligence unit, WOOC(P).
The Ipcress File was a debut sensation. Here in the second Secret File, Horse under Water, skin-diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which the dead hand of a long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today’s Europe.
The detail is frightening but unfaultable; the story as up to date as ever it was. The un-named hero of The Ipcress File the same: insolent, fallible, capricious – in other words, human. But he must draw on all his abilities, good and bad, when plunged into a story of murder, betrayal and greed every bit as murky as the waters off the coast of Portugal, where the answers lie buried.
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Reviews
How can you not love a 60's spy novel with authoritative footnotes and informative appendices; a story that is well written with appealing characters and a sense of humor. Each of the 58 chapter titles are clues to a crossword puzzle (the solution is printed in my copy just after the copyright page), and the Spy File theme is revealed in copies of "official" documents placed in front of the first chapter. Deighton's existential hero is more relevant now in 2013 than in 1963.
Rating: 4The truculent secret agent is in Portugal learning to Scuba dive, and indulging in some onion peeling. The ostensible mission isn't the real mission, and that one..... Good fun.
Rating: 3Solid but unspectacular - in the same series as Ipcress File. Deighton's anti-hero is diverting - but it does not deliver in the same way as the Bernard Sansom novels.
Rating: 3