I Read Books: An Expensive Place To Die

 

An Expensive Place To Die

A covert British agent in Paris is asked to leak nuclear secrets to a Chinese agent based at the Chinese embassy (official cover)*. This is complicated by a house which may or may not be involved with the French government, and also the Chinese, where M Datt studies the psychology of various men while they have sex, also probably blackmails them to stop from being closed down with the odd things going on.

Everyone has an angle and is trying to use each other, including the French police inspector’s ex-wife who it turns out is more closely involved than anyone thinks. Occasionally violent and bloody, it’s also dark, sordid and sometimes funny.

Read This: A gritty spy thriller that works its way through cool and weird 60s Paris
Don’t Read This: Eventually it leaves Paris and just becomes a bit grim and odd
Not Explicitly Linked: To Deighton's other 60s spy thrillers, neither is is specifically un-canon

* American nuclear tests in the Pacific have minimised the amount of fallout in the official (public?) reports to prevent people suggesting that these weapons are monstrous and should not be built let alone used. This has led some Chinese military to suggest that China could survive and win a war with the US. The actual reports say the fallout is horrific, and they want to leak this data to try and discourage any Chinese aggression. Espionage baby! Telling our own people lies and our opponents the truth. The hard part is convincing the Chinese these are the real reports.