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Yesterday's Spy (1975)

Yesterday's Spy (1975)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.62 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
044630882X (ISBN13: 9780446308823)
Language
English
Publisher
harcourt brace jovanovich

About book Yesterday's Spy (1975)

Deighton's spy novels are very low-key affairs with muted details that might go by you until pointed out by the protagonist. Often events will occur that seem to have no relevancy until later. To me it seems that not much will happen until the last third, but in retrospect much is happening. It's just that you're forced to see things from the protagonist's viewpoint and that character (like all of us) is in a situation in which he is being forced to act without knowing all the facts. While many might find it frustrating there are times when I enjoy this slower paced approach. It forces me to think a bit more instead of just mindlessly going along for the ride."Yesterday's Spy" isn't a bad read. It's set in the mid-seventies (when it was written), but the plot is connected to the French Resistance movement in WWII and how enemies and friends have changed over the past thirty years. The clarity of the war years is gone and that generation is now middle-aged and dealing with a much murkier situation. As a result old loyalties have changed (though there is a possibility that things weren't what they seemed during the war either) and the results won't be as satisfying. The climax is exciting, but there is also a twist to the slam-bang ending. Once again things aren't what they seem and ultimately the heroes of the past might just turn out to be self-serving bastards who help nobody but themselves. "Yesterday's Spy" is a satisfying read. Somewhat like a John le Carré novel only not as dense. I breezed through it in a couple of day with most of it being completed within a few hours.

In this novel Len Deighton is extending the spy hriller genre. First of all, the novel is told in the first person. Charlie, the central character explains very little about MI6 procedure and his war time exploits leaving the readers to work a bit harder to put it all together.Secondly Charlie is a middle aged bespectacled agent who is called on to investigate what his war time commanding officer is doing back in Provence scene of their greatest exploits. He is far from the debonair byronic hero like James Bond. He dresses shabbily and lives in seedy back street hotels.However the story has twists and surprises like any thriller and the climax is just like any James Bond story. The daring plot is revealed just as it is about to spring into action and only Charlie with his ingenuity and daring can prevent chaos. The result is a big explosion just as you'd expect.

Do You like book Yesterday's Spy (1975)?

Charlie is a middle aged bespectacled agent who is called on to investigate what his war time commanding officer is doing back in Provence scene of their greatest exploits. He is far from the debonair byronic hero like James Bond. He dresses shabbily and lives in seedy back street hotels. However the story has twists and surprises like any thriller and the climax is just like any James Bond story. The daring plot is revealed just as it is about to spring into action and only Charlie with his ingenuity and daring can prevent chaos. The result is a big explosion just as you'd expect.This book was ok I have read better books by this author this is not one of them.
—Lesley

Kinsey Millhone, the P.I. created by Sue Grafton, is seen reading Len Deighton novels in many of her books. I had heard about Deighton, the movie Ipcress File was based on his novel of the same name. So, when I saw this book in a second hand book stall I bought it promptly. But, sadly, what followed was a mediocre read.The major problem, I had with this book, was that it had no suspense. From the very beginning, the reader knew who was good and who happened to be the bad guy. So, the only portion not known was how the good guy is going to catch the bad guy. So, basically this turned out to be a spy adventure novel. But, saying that the book had a speed of its own. Once I started reading I never felt out of pace. The events described were short and strong, the dialogues were short too, though at times clichéd.The characterisations were adequate for a spy novel. Since the main feature of the book is based on catching and stopping the villain from carrying out his villainy, detailed characterisation was unnecessary and mercifully not provided.I guess this was a wrong choice to begin my tryst with Len Deighton. Well, I will lok out for another of his novels, and try it out, before giving up on him.
—Anirban Das

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