One of Deighton’s last works, actually the first of his regular espionage I’ve read, so I was quite often thinking “who are these people again?” They are set in the mid-late-80s and concern an ageing English spy raised in Berlin, Bernard Samson, and his improbably beautiful and loving wife and girlfriend. The books are well written, with a dry & black humour:

‘Are you a Catholic, Rupert?’

‘No. Well, sort of,’ he said. ‘I was once.’ I didn’t take too much notice of that denial; every dedicated Catholic I know says he’s lapsed.

I was often reminded of Le Carre: the Central European backdrop, the protagonist’s sense of mixed loyalty, of belonging nowhere, the Germanic influence, the cynicism about British Intelligence and its higher bureaucrats, the sense that all of these intrigues fizzle out as someone somewhere cancels the entire thing.