Funeral in Berlin (1964)

Len Deighton's anonymous spy hero is selected to facilitate the stealth defection of a Soviet scientist from East Germany into West Germany by means of a mock funeral procession. The only problem is everyone from the dubious British intelligence contact in west Berlin to the gruff Soviet colonel on the east side of the wall claim the defection will go down without a hitch... and our hero is either savvy or cynical enough to know almost everyone involved is lying. In the midst of this is an Israeli agent, a missing cat named Confucius, and the terrible cover name of 'Edmund Dorf'. Grab your inflatable Batman suits, we're going back to the Cold War and crossing through Checkpoint Charlie, kiddos!

Similar to the story of how I ended up cracking open Farewell, My Lovely, I came to reading Funeral in Berlin for the first time because I've adored the 1966 film version starring Michael Caine for many years and had Len Deighton on my to-read list for just as long. Now that I have read him, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner, because I quickly came to understand Deighton is a master of espionage fiction on the same level as the great Ian Fleming. Although it must be said... the amount of black coffee, cigarettes, and booze this character consumes on a daily basis might actually put Bond to shame.

Sometimes referred to as a 'working class spy', Deighton's unnamed protagonist does seem to find himself involved in the less glamorous end of the spy game. Instead of dining with fashion model looking femme fatales or gambling with baddies in Monte Carlo casinos, our hero is getting bopped on the back of the head by hoodlums and hassled about his expense reports by his boss and secretary. There's no comic strip villain in a secret lair to contend with either. Here the players are mostly grounded in the harsh realities of the Cold War with the specter of World War II's consequences always following in their wake.

Deighton's writing is rife with Chandler-esque descriptive passages giving the reader hints as to just how intelligent and perceptive the character really is despite his best efforts to lull everyone into a false sense of security by playing the part of a doltish dullard. Indeed, it would seem our hero is never short of a quip or a quick-witted retort when his patience is tested:

I looked at Johnnie Vulkan. Growing older seemed to agree with him. He didn't

look a day over forty, his hair was like a tailored Brillo pad and his face tanned. He wore a well-cut Berlin suit of English pinhead worsted. He leaned back in his chair and pointed a finger lazily towards me. His hand was so sunburned that his nails seemed pale pink. 

He said, 'Before we start, let's get one thing clear. No one here needs help; you are superfluous to requirements as far as I am concerned. Just remember that; stay out of the way and everything will be O.K. Get in the way and...' He shrugged his shoulders. 'This is a dangerous town.' He kept his hand pointing into my face and gave a flash of a smile. 

I looked at him for a moment. I looked at his smile and at his hand. 

'Next time you point a finger at someone, Johnnie,' I said, 'remember that three of

your fingers are pointing back at you.' He lowered his hand as though it had become heavy.

The author admits in the book's afterword to being completely smitten with the city of Berlin in real life and spent plenty of time there, which thus results in the descriptive flavoring of the setting being so rich and lively. In addition to being a provocative and sometimes droll spy story, Funeral in Berlin is also a window into a very specific snapshot in time: post-war Germany finding itself again and the sometimes bizarre, sometimes harrowing co-existence of east and west powers operating in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

I couldn't put this book down and before I even turned over the last page, I hastily acquired a small stack of Len Deighton novels to read in the future. Funeral in Berlin is technically the third in a series of four novels featuring the unnamed hero, but I found nothing in this novel that made it seem not reading the prior books first would ruin this one or leave the reader in the dark. Recommended.