Berlin Game

"All spy fiction is really an extended metaphor for the office. No character captures that better than Bernard Samson, a middle-ranking intelligence executive, who can’t trust anyone. He’s meant to be outwitting the KGB, but he could be any middle-aged man struggling to stay afloat in a big company, betrayed by his bosses as well as his wife. Berlin Game is the first (and best) of the Game, Set and Match trilogy, the height of Deighton’s achievements. Samson is going into work every day on the train, watching his back at work, his marriage is collapsing. Deighton is very good on women and marriage. Anyway, Samson is hunting for a mole in the organisation who is leaking details and it has a brilliant twist because all the way through you think the marriage stuff is just padding, characterisation, but in fact one of the reasons his wife is so difficult is that she’s working for the KGB. I think this really is the best Cold War thriller."