Berlin Game is a 1983 spy novel by Len Deighton. 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The spy fiction genre (sometimes called political thriller) first arose just before the First World War, at about the same time, the first organized intelligence agencies were being formed. ... Len Deighton (left) teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg on the set of The Ipcress File. ...

About the Book

Brahms Four wants out. This alarming signal - it means that one of Britain's most reliable, most valuable agents behind the Iron Curtain is urgently demanding safe passage to the West - sends a ripple of panic through the highest levels of the British secret service. And - appropriately - it has fallen to Bernard Samson, himself once active in the field (his territory, Eastern Europe), but now anchored behind a London desk, to undertake the crucial rescue. After all, it was Brahms Four who once, nearly twenty years ago, rescued him.

But even before Samson sets out on his mission, he is confronted with inescapable evidence that there is a traitor among his colleagues - a traitor planted by Moscow Center. Clearly, it is someone close to the top, close to Samson himself. It could by Dicky Cruyer, his immediate supervisor - the Department Wunderkind - whom Samson despises. It could be the American Bret Rensselaer, who has built his entire career around the work of Brahms Four - and who is spending an inordinate amount of time with Samson's wife, Fiona (she too is an agent). It could be Frank Harrington, the man in charge (for the moment) of the agency's office in Berlin. It could be Giles Trent - except that his connection to the KGB seems almost too obvious. It could be any member of the senior staff at London Central... even the Director-General himself...

Through brilliantly etched scenes of suspense - as we follow Samson into the center of a web of lies, time-honored assumptions, and intramural intrigues that mask the traitor's identity - the novel moves between London and Berlin (Berlin East as well as West) until, at last, the mists of secrecy that have cloaked both past and present are dissolved... and hero and traitor collide.

Other

In the novel is an early mention of the urban legend that President John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" remark actually translated to "I am a jelly doughnut." In Berlin Game, the character Bernard Samson is told that he is berlinerisch: Urban legends are a kind of folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them (see rumor). ... John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as John F. Kennedy, JFK or Jack Kennedy, was the 35th President of the United States. ... Plaque commemorating Kennedys speech next to the front entrance of Rathaus Schöneberg Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a citizen of Berlin) is a famous quotation from a June 26, 1963 speech of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. ...

"'Ich bin ein Berliner,' I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts." Len Deighton, Berlin Game, reprinted in Game, Set, Match (1986), page 85.

In the preface to the reprint, Deighton notes that the novel is told in the highly subjective voice of the character of Bernard Samson, "who is inclined to complain and exaggerate so that we have to interpret the world around him." The author says that "Readers who take Bernard’s words literally are missing a lot of the intended content." 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In a related novel, Deighton reminded his readers that the views of the characters were not necessarily those of the writer. Winter (1987), page preceding page 1, quoting James Jones: "...readers should remember that the opinions expressed by the characters are not necessarily those of the author...". 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Ich bin ein Berliner