"A good agent should have a fast brain and a slow mouth." (189)

Deighton's protagonist in his fourth spy story isn't very good at taking his own sage advice on this score, and he often manages to kill the mood for his interlocutors with the momentum of his wit. Still nameless--although now sometimes alias "Liam Dempsey"--our man hasn't lost his appetite for reading military history or gained any emotional coordination with his beautiful secretary. But the book's events have him preoccupied with a global anti-communist network run by a technophile American mogul, who seems to be H. Ross Perot prematurely aged in the 1960s. Penetrating this "amateur" espionage outfit leads to various adventures.

The author's twenty-first-century retrospective introduction treats his methods of research and writing. He shares that he later came to disdain the extensive travel that he had used to incubate this novel, but I think it really paid off. I don't know Helsinki, Leningrad or Riga, but his Manhattan and south Texas episodes were quite persuasive. He also mentions the increasing complexity of character continuity in this book, as it returns to interactions with key figures from the previous volume beyond the immediate colleagues of the narrator. Billion-Dollar Brain however avoids the sort of supplementary viewpoint chapters that Deighton had tried out in Funeral in Berlin, sticking more rigorously with the speaker's perspective as he had done in his first books.

The revelation of the story's manic pixie dream girl as a femme fatale is artfully predictable, and is thankfully not at all the point of the book. There is a significant plotline regarding clandestine trade in viral pathogens, and the fact that a central character complained of fevers and feelings of illness remains an un-dropped shoe after the final pages. I did appreciate a long chapter of denouement to unwind, with a mop-up operation motivated by inter-agency rivalry.

The 4th in the 7 Harry Palmer books. Here we are introduced to AI 50 years early! Also the little known area of privately funded agencies playing in the espionage space is explored. Another great read from LD. ( )

The WOOC(P) Files #4
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition (April, 2021) of the original Jonathan Cape hardcover (1966)

A billion dollars doesn't buy what it used to. - epigram used for Billion-Dollar Brain

See photograph at https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SurQn8pYGto/WLB4ed3ra6I/AAAAAAAAC7E/gXB8XW3tLaADgeawf...
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in a film still from Billion Dollar Brain (1967), image sourced from Classic Movies Photos Blogspot.

Billion-Dollar Brain had more of a simplified plot for Deighton's nameless protagonist (named "Harry Palmer" in the Michael Caine film adaptations) who works for a similarly anonymous British secret service known only by its initials WOOC(P). There were still some twists, but much less banter with the spy chief Dawlish. I LOL'd at this exchange though, where Dawlish hints at the "Palmer" character's often expressed lack of enthusiasm for the spy game:

When I said I'd told Harvey Newbegin that I only worked for WOOC(P) part-time, Dawlish said: 'Well you certainly weren't lying about that, were you?'

Perennial Russian nemesis Colonel Stok makes his usual shady appearance. The so-called "billion-dollar brain" (actually costed at $300 million, with 1/2 for development & 1/2 for actual construction*) didn't really feature all that much and as opposed to a James Bond type ending where the agent would likely have blown up the apparatus and the complex that housed it, the ending was instead a very human based one of naïve faith and ultimate betrayal.

The biggest surprise in retrospect (and which now reads as cringey) was secretary Jean's role back at head office. In the new 2022 television adaptation of the first book The Ipcress File (1962), both Jean and secretary Alice are turned into very formidable agents in their own right.

Billion-Dollar Brain is the 4th of my Len Deighton re-reads (I first read almost all of them in my teens) after having learned of the Penguin Modern Classics republication of all of his novels which were published during 2021 as outlined in an online article Why Len Deighton's spy stories are set to thrill a new generation (Guardian/Observer May 2, 2021).

Trivia and Link
This 4th book Billion-Dollar Brain was filmed (the 2nd Secret File/Harry Palmer book Horse Under Water was skipped over in the film adaptations) as the 3rd Harry Palmer film Billion Dollar Brain (1967) directed by Ken Russell. The 4th and 5th films still starred Michael Caine, but did not use Deighton's novels as the source material.

* It probably had a capability that would be bested by a modern day laptop. ( )

A really good spy novel. A little bit airy and light and certainly quite funny. However its not a comedy, there are some pretty absurd characters but i have a feeling they're probably more realistic than we would want them to be ;) .
Most of the humour comes from sardonic and cynical main character. Although there are some action scenes its mostly more realistic and low key than something like Bond.
Perhaps a little convenient at times but not too much and i wasn't too confused about what was happening which is always a danger in detective or spy fiction.
Everything was also quite easy to picture the style of writing being quite descriptive. Occasionally you'd get these almost stream-of-consiousness burst of description which were a little jarring from the rest of the writing but it was a quick and effective way to add detail to certain scenes.
Overall really enjoyable and clearly well researched and i think i might well check out some of Deighton's other books. ( )

First off, I love Len Deighton. He's one of the Big Three of spy fiction, along with Littell and Le Carre. There is no Big Four. The very best spy fiction has been written by one of the afore-mentioned three. "Billion Dollar Brain" (BDB) is NOT one of the best, not even close. BDB is the third of the Harry Palmer trilogy, written early in Deighton's career. I don't recommend any of the Harry Palmer books....(but I do strongly recommend the movie version of the other two Palmer books, ""Ipcress File" and "Funeral in Berlin", both staring Michael Caine - skip the BDB movie).

The BDB book has little to do with the BDB movie, plotwise, but let me try to summarize the book. Not an easy task. It's about six eggs implanted with a deadly virus which are being pursued by the Ruskies. Who has the eggs now....hard to say. There is a sub-plot, or is it the main plot? It deals with an ultra right wing retired American General who wants to trigger an uprising by the Lavians V the Russians. It's a confused mess.

But back to Deighton. Beginning in 1983, he wrote a marvelous trilogy trilogy (not a typo, I'll explain.) The first three books were "Berlin Game", "Mexico Set", " London Match". The next three were "Faith" "(get it now?), "Hope", "Charity". Take a stab at the last three. Anyway, the main plot of these nine books, a trilogy trilogy, concerns a British upper crust family which has a long and respected history with MI-6.....until one of them defects to the other side. A great winter read, hours and hours.... ( )