Horse Under Water

Product Information

I probably would have given at least a 4 when this first came out, but in the context of the 21st century writing i have to drop it to 3. I enjoyed The Ipcress File and have since set out reading all the Harry Palmer novels. This second one was a good read as well, though not as strong as the first, suffering from protracted exposition that didn't forward the story; for example, the opening chapters detail Palmer's diving course that did little except explain how he later possessed diving skills (even though he did very little of the actual diving; Singleton and Giorgio doing the heavy lifting in that department). We knew When the Narrator presents all this as new evidence to his boss, Dawlish, the latter pulls out a big file marked Young Europe Movement. He’s known about it all along. They were just using the Narrator because they knew he’d flush out the list itself. So the heroin was a side issue, after all. The ice-to-water device was moonshine. It was all about the Weiss List, but will any of the Nazi sympathisers be arrested? Of course not. Though Intelligence will let it be known that the full list is now in their hands… Confusing Horses, like many mammals, can swim naturally without being taught. When a horse swims, it paddles, similar to how a dog swims. If you looked through a clear window that allows you to see underwater, it would look like the horse doing a type of trot in the water. However, horses aren’t necessarily natural water lovers. Some horses enjoy the water and will go straight in, paw and splash in the water, while others won’t dip their hoof in a puddle. This is the same as dogs and many other four legged animals who are not natural water lovers.

But, it's such a cowardly act, I think, not least because it changes the author's words, often without their permission. The novel is also, famously, the first modern novel written on a true IBM PC, which at the time took up much of the room in Deighton's office in his ground floor flat in London, as I wrote about a number of years ago.Reading the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy Susannah Hart 1st Prize, National Poetry Competition 2019 Long Distance Relationship with a Mountain David Hawkins 2nd Prize, National Poetry Competition 2015

I know you only invited me in for a coffee, but Natalie Shaw Commended, National Poetry Competition 2018 Nevertheless, it prompted me to take my copy off the shelf, and look at it again, something I haven't done for a number of years in point of fact. And, to consider its value as a 'book', a collectable item, and its place within the wider canon of Deighton books. Confusing,’ I replied. ‘Of course it’s confusing. You involve yourself in industrial espionage and then you complain about it being confusing.’ (Ch 44)

By keeping them on my shelves, and perhaps in future passing them on to someone else or selling them through a dealer, I feel some solace that I am undertaking an entirely passive, but revolutionary act, in the name of truth and reality, during this current period of cultural perturbation. Catherine Eddowes’ tin box as a key witness Emma Purshouse 3rd prize, National Poetry Competition 2021 Len Deighton's unnamed spy, first encountered in The Ipcress File, stands somewhere between the OTT hero antics of James Bond and the far more believable and prosaic world of John Le Carre's George Smiley. Horse Under Water is not quite as well known the three Len Deighton novels that were made into Michael Caine movies; which it should be. Then the third element is the assortment of foreigners he meets in Portugal, who each seem to have their own agendas. There are several distinct threads: What emerges is a complex tale of deceit, heroin dealing and unlikely ex-Nazis still working in high places. The novel switches between Marrakech, London, Portugal and Gibraltar, where the British commonwealth still interfaced with Franco's Spain and the book remains a timely reminder of just how much Europe has changed within our own lifetimes.