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paul_cornelius's review
4.0
Not a bad entry at all into the Len Deighton series of 1960s Cold War spy novels. Things don't quite hold together as well as in preceding novels, but that is primarily the fault of the last quarter to a third of the book, which jumps around. The passages detailing the trip to and into Helsinki are tightly plotted and fascinating in their atmosphere and the suspense they create. The trip to Texas is handled nicely enough, too. Not many cliches, although not much action either. Going back to the UK, the novel begins a bit of a downward trajectory, which is in full form by the time things get the USSR. One thing: Colonel Stok is becoming more and more likable to me. But I can't get Oskar Homolka image from the film version of Funeral in Berlin out of my mind.
Finally, just a mention of the comparison of the novel to the film. There is no comparison. The novel is enjoyable, albeit workmanlike. The film is a mess. All I can remember is snow and ice. It flopped. It should have done. The book is much better.
Finally, just a mention of the comparison of the novel to the film. There is no comparison. The novel is enjoyable, albeit workmanlike. The film is a mess. All I can remember is snow and ice. It flopped. It should have done. The book is much better.
technomage's review
3.0
Have avoided this having seen the film of it years ago but the books is better even if it's not the best of this series.
smcleish's review
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in January 2004.
The fourth Harry Palmer novel (in which he is still an unnamed narrator; the name was given him for the films) is the most dated of all of them. It relies on a plot device straight from James Bond or even The Man From UNCLE - the network of agents run by a computer. The novel begins with a Finnish journalist making waves when he starts investigating what he thinks is a massive British Secret Service operation in Finland - but there isn't one, so Palmer and his superiors want to find out just what he has stumbled across. The trail leads to a private army, assembled by a rabidly anti-Communist American billionaire, whose technicians have built the computer (in typical sixties style, one which fills several floors of a large building) to run the group's operations.
In the end, the computer is relatively unimportant, but it certainly does mark out Billion-Dollar Brain as a product of its time. As a spy thriller, though, the novel is something of a let-down for other reasons, which may well be why Deighton abandoned his Palmer character at this point. Indeed, it seems as though he has already, because almost all the quirkiness which marks the earlier novels is by now missing. By comparison with the earlier writing, it fails to be more than a run of the mill spy thriller. While still of the opinion that this is Deighton's poorest novel, it doesn't seem as bad this time around as I remember it (the computer plays a smaller part than I recalled, which may be part of the reason that this is the case). Nevertheless, it is still at least as good as its forgotten contemporaries - of which it would probably have been one without Deighton's name attached.
The fourth Harry Palmer novel (in which he is still an unnamed narrator; the name was given him for the films) is the most dated of all of them. It relies on a plot device straight from James Bond or even The Man From UNCLE - the network of agents run by a computer. The novel begins with a Finnish journalist making waves when he starts investigating what he thinks is a massive British Secret Service operation in Finland - but there isn't one, so Palmer and his superiors want to find out just what he has stumbled across. The trail leads to a private army, assembled by a rabidly anti-Communist American billionaire, whose technicians have built the computer (in typical sixties style, one which fills several floors of a large building) to run the group's operations.
In the end, the computer is relatively unimportant, but it certainly does mark out Billion-Dollar Brain as a product of its time. As a spy thriller, though, the novel is something of a let-down for other reasons, which may well be why Deighton abandoned his Palmer character at this point. Indeed, it seems as though he has already, because almost all the quirkiness which marks the earlier novels is by now missing. By comparison with the earlier writing, it fails to be more than a run of the mill spy thriller. While still of the opinion that this is Deighton's poorest novel, it doesn't seem as bad this time around as I remember it (the computer plays a smaller part than I recalled, which may be part of the reason that this is the case). Nevertheless, it is still at least as good as its forgotten contemporaries - of which it would probably have been one without Deighton's name attached.
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