Horse Under Water

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On rereading many decades later, I found the book still engaging and engrossing. Since there is a twist ending, and I already know it, the story is no longer as compelling as it once was, but still a fun read. Horse under Water (1963) by Len Deighton is the second in the un-named spy series (aka Harry Palmer) The plot centres on retrieving items from a Type XXI U-boat sunk off the Portuguese coast in the last days of World War II. Initially, the items are forged British and American currency, for financing a revolution in Portugal on the cheap. Later, it switches to heroin (the "Horse" of the title), and eventually it is revealed that the true interest is in the "Weiss list" – a list of Britons prepared to help the Third Reich set up a puppet government in Britain, should Germany prevail. Thrown into the mix is secret "ice melting" technology, which could be vital to the missile submarines then beginning to hide under the Arctic sea ice. In both those (and other) instances, the novelist has passed away and their estates - charged with looking after the interests of the author's works - are, seemingly, happy to go along with this. So, early encouraging signs perhaps that this isn't just a pastiche, by-the-numbers remake, but a serious attempt to retell this classic spy story.

Clive Singleton– from the British Embassy in Portugal, turns up at the Narrator’s flat in Albufeiras, which the Narrator is not happy with. Good swimmer, is soon assisting Giorgio in his daily dives to the U-boat. Famously, it recounts how - given that the Berlin Wall still existed at the time, and filming behind the Wall was, unsurprisingly, not allowed - the producers had to improvise when filming the many scenes requiring actor Ian Holm (as Bernard) and others to be in Eastern Europe. Our anonymous secret agent from The Ipcress File is now working with his W.O.O.C.(P). boss Dawlish. Len Deighton's unnamed spy, first encountered in The Ipcress File, stands somewhere between the OTT hero antics of James Bond and the far more believable and prosaic world of John Le Carre's George Smiley. Horse Under Water is not quite as well known the three Len Deighton novels that were made into Michael Caine movies; which it should be. Anti-Bond, anti-London clubs, swish apartment and best hotels. The narrator’s offices are in unglamorous Charlotte Street, he lives in a flat in Southwark and his beady eye registers all the shabby details of modern life.Any book, by its very nature, is of its time, and so will also reflect the sensibilities and language of its time. And to that extent, I can see perhaps the sense of adding a publishers' note in the end papers advising readers of that fact. It's merely a guide, a sop to the more sensitive reader, that leaves the book unsullied Spy Line Through a typically tangled web of incidents and conversations Samson’s suspicions are confirmed: his wife is a double agent, she has been working for us all along, she only pretended to defect to the East. After numerous encounters with various old friends of his father and retired agents, Samson finds himself swept up in the brutal, bloody plan to secure Fiona’s escape from the East. Corkscrew Hill Photo Roger Philip Dennis 1st Prize, National Poetry Competition 2014. Plus filmpoem

In the wild, horses will often cross rivers to gain access to food or shelter and escape danger. They grow up learning these skills from birth. However, a domestic horse does not learn the same survival skills as a wild herd. As a result, his ideas about entering the water can vary from enthusiastic to no way! It is important to remember that each horse is an individual and will have their own preferences when it comes to swimming. Speaking of Singleton and Giorgio, they were never fleshed out as characters, even though Palmer spends a lot of time in their company. Giorgio's death (and Joe's) had little emotional impact because I felt I didn't know the man. Charly gets the most fleshing out--literally--as descriptions of her lounging about in a bikini or her failed attempts at keeping her robe closed while making coffee are included now and again to goose the reader out of the doldrums that set in trying to remember who exactly that German admiral under an assumed name was and why the Royal Navy defector did what he did with the Fascist movement. The Fruit of the Spirit is Love (Galatians 5:22) Marvin Thompson 1st Prize, National Poetry Competition 2020What is unique about the book is that although fiction, Deighton drew much from his knowledge of military history --and to let you share in that pleasure--he provides a running patter of footnotes and an appendix at the end. Readers of Rebecca West will see where he got some of his ideas from. And all the brighter and more exotic by contrast with sorry smoggy London. Fog, smog, bedsits, rented flats, threadbare carpets, shillings for the meter.