Billion-dollar brain
Ratings2
Average rating4
15
Ratings2
Average rating4
The classic spy thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniac's private cold war, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File.The fourth of Deighton's novels to be narrated by the unnamed employee of WOOC(P) is the thrilling story of an anti-communist espionage network owned by a Texan billionaire, General Midwinter, run from a vast computer complex known as the Brain. After having been recruited by Harvey Newbegin, the narrator travels from the bone-freezing winter of Helsinki, Riga and Leningrad, to the stifling heat of Texas, and soon finds himself tangling with enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Reviews with the most likes.
The fourth of Deighton's “unnamed spy” novels, this is a far more subtle story than the sub-Bondian antics of the film adaptation.
Tasked with infiltrating the private espionage network of General Midwinter (creator of the eponymous Billion Dollar Brain), our protagonist falls in with Harvey Newbegin, one of Midwinter's men in a tale of cross and double-cross involving stolen viruses. The story moves from London to Helsinki, Leningrad, New York, San Antonio and back again. The erstwhile Colonel Stok from Funeral in Berlin also crops up.
At heart this is a tale of friendship and loyalty and what happens when orders from on high force you to betray that friendship. Excellent stuff.
