Agent Palmer

The first book in the second Bernard Samson trilogy feels much more serialized than the start of a trilogy. I wouldn’t suggest that you start with Spy Hook; however, it is the beginning of a compelling arc that provides more information for your personal dossier of Bernard Samson.

Winter: A Novel of a Berlin Family by Len Deighton is a familial masterpiece. Starting with Harald Winter and focusing on his two sons, Peter and Paul Winter, this novel follows the family’s journey as their spouses and friends are all intertwined in chaotic and random events as history unfolds with World War I and World War II.

London Match, the final piece in the first trilogy centered on Bernard Samson, does well to both stand on its own and build off of its predecessors, Berlin Game and Mexico Set. As expected, author Len Deighton delivers everything you could ever want in spy fiction with the bonus of Bernard Samson being, well, Bernard Samson!

It’s hard to say anything more than Mexico Set is a brilliant second act to Berlin Game’s first. Deighton picks up the plot where he left off and Samson is perhaps even more relatable in dealing with the aftermath or fallout of that first act.

There isn’t usually a lot of hype going in to the reading of a book that is more than three decades old when you get around to it, but thanks to the wonderful community of the Spybrary Podcast, my reading through the bibliography of Len Deighton finally arrived at Berlin Game, the first of nine novels from Deighton starring Bernard Samson.