Berlin Game

Penguin Modern Classics

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.

Try for £0.00

More purchase options

Buy Now for £11.20

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Embattled agent Bernard Samson is used to being passed over for promotion as his younger, more ambitious colleagues - including his own wife Fiona - rise up the ranks of MI6. When a valued agent in East Berlin warns the British of a mole at the heart of the Service, Samson must return to the field and the city he loves to uncover the traitor's identity. This is the first novel in Len Deighton's acclaimed, Game, Set and Match trilogy.

A BERNARD SAMSON NOVEL

'Masterly ... dazzlingly intelligent and subtle' Sunday Times

'Deighton's best novel to date - sharp, witty and sour, like Raymond Chandler adapted to British gloom and the multiple betrayals of the spy' Observer

© Len Deighton 1983 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Len DeightonJames LaileyPenguin ClassicsBernard Samson

Espionage

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Spies & Politics

Thriller & Suspense

Fiction

Espionage Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Fiction

Continue the series

Hope

By: Len Deighton

Charity

By: Len Deighton

Critic reviews

The Berlin Game trilogy made lockdown possible. (Olivia Laing)

Deighton's outstanding achievement is the nine-volume series chronicling the life and times of Bernard Samson ... Deighton's Samson trilogies are as much about the elusiveness of human interactions as espionage. Spying is not a secret world sealed off from ordinary life but an extension of the world we all live in. (John Gray)

Spying at its most captivating and intricate. (Marcel Berlins)

Deighton's best novel to date - sharp, witty and sour, like Raymond Chandler adapted to British gloom and the multiple betrayals of the private spy.

Virtuoso top level performance.

Sheer consistent rightness page after page after page.

A labyrinthine espionage epic lightened with laconic wit. (Jeremy Duns)

Deighton, as always, makes the familiar twists and turns of spy errantry new again, partly by his grip of narrative, partly by his grasp of character, and partly by his easy, sardonic tone.

Len Deighton's spy novels are so good they make me sad the Cold War is over. (Malcolm Gladwell)

Most relevant

This is my first Len Deighton story, but now I realise I have watched, loved and re-watched films based on his stories for decades.

A master storyteller not just in plot but in his ability and insistence to flesh out the characters into real people rather than props. Each could have their own stories and series of back story or follow up novels as each are given enough depth and humanity to engage the reader (listener) into caring about all of them.

I’m intrigued to know more about ‘Lenin’ and the young pasty-faced fast-tracked policeman near the end of this book. What are their fuller stories? What happened to them? Maybe I will meet them again in the later parts of the trilogy of trilogies?

Can’t wait!

The narrator, James Lailey, bring the story and vocal characterisations to life without overplaying or hamming up the necessary switches in accent throughout. Characters are consistently portrayed to be recognisable and the pace of the story, paragraphing and scene changes easy to grasp without effort, distraction or confusion.

A genuine 5***** performance and genuine 5***** writing.