Spy Hook
The long-awaited reissue of the first part of the classic spy trilogy, HOOK, LINE and SINKER, when the Berlin Wall divided not just a city but a world.Working for the Department was like marriage is supposed to be – ''til death do us part' – but the Department is really not like that; and neither are many marriages, including that of Bernard Samson. The cool and cynical field agent of the GAME, SET and MATCH trilogy has grown older and wiser. But things have not gone well for Samson: old pals are not as friendly as they used to be and colleagues are less confiding than they once were.Now, starting with his mission to Washington, life has become even more precarious for Bernard. Ignoring all warnings, friendly, devious and otherwise, he pursues his own investigation and, in California, meets with the biggest surprise of his life…
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When considering how I might illustrate the cover of the first part of this second trilogy of spy novels, where the KGB loom large, I thought that the sickle part of the Communist symbol (representing unity of peasants and workers) would make the perfect visual analogy for a hook. In use since 1917/18, the Hammer and Sickle became the official symbol of the Communist party in 1922.
Some years ago, I photographed a graffiti image of the emblem on a wall in Italy. As the surface seemed to lack the rough texture that I was after, my wife – who can work wonders on the computer – superimposed the communist motif over one of my photographs that I had taken of the Berlin Wall from the eastern side at the time of its downfall. (I also took the opportunity to join the jubilant crowd in standing atop the wall.)
By impaling the photo of Bernard Samson on the point of the sickle I could suggest how the KGB were getting their hooks into poor Bernard as he tries to navigate the maze of deception and betrayal in this wonderful story.
The vignette on the back cover features two postcards of Berlin from the Cold War era, plus a metal souvenir of the Brandenburg Gate, potent symbols of a city so familiar to Bernard, and which may prove his saviour or his downfall.
At the heart of every one of the nine books in this triple trilogy is Bernard Samson, so I wanted to come up with a neat way of visually linking them all. When the reader has collected all nine books and displays them together in sequential order, the books’ spines will spell out Samson’s name in the form of a blackmail note made up of airline baggage tags. The tags were drawn from my personal collection, and are colourful testimony to thousands of air miles spent travelling the world.
Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI
LEN DEIGHTON
Spy Hook
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Hutchinson Ltd 1988
Copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 1988
Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2010
Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2010
Cover design and photography © Arnold Schwartzman 2010
Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780586068960
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780007395361
Version: 2017-05-23
Contents
The Game, Set and Match trilogy made a continuous story. To underline this construction Berlin Game started with Bernard and his friend Werner sitting in a car at Checkpoint Charlie. The third book, London Match, ended with the two men sitting in a car, talking about that previous occasion. But I didn’t want to continue the books, writing another story and then another. I didn’t want to produce a series of books; I wanted a sequence of different books about the same people. I wanted each book to be important and complete and as good as I could make it. To do this I decided I must break away after that first trilogy. No matter that I had drawn up a big master plan; a chart to guide me and a card index for the characters, I wanted to go away and live (with my family) in a different environment so that I could sit back and think and look afresh at the nine-book project.
I found my new environment but I did not sit idle. I drafted a completely different book that would take a lot of time and energy. I decided that I must complete it before I started writing the second trilogy. A prequel seemed a valuable addition and almost a necessity. There were so many things I wanted to say about the characters that surround Bernard, especially the elderly ones. My story would have to cover a long period. While
