Bernard Samson

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Bernard Samson is the protagonist of three trilogies written by Len Deighton. Samson is a jaded MI6 operative mainly in East Germany and England during the Cold War. The books are set from 1983-1988, with a large gap between 1984 and 1987. He undergoes great personal sacrifice in his duties and is often ignored by his superiors, being passed over for promotion or sent to Berlin on duty during the Christmas holidays, for example. This is especially true in the first three books, Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match. The second trilogy's titles are Spy Hook, Spy Line, and Spy Sinker, followed by the third and final trilogy: Faith, Hope, and Charity. The plots are complicated and ultimately revolve around Samson's wife Fiona and which side she is really working for. Fiona defected to the East Germans; but later it was discovered that she was a double agent, working for MI6

Early life: Samson is the son of a British MI6 operative who had worked in Germany during the war; afterwards, when he was assigned to Berlin, Bernard grew up there, receiving a typical German schoolboy's education rather than a privileged English one. Despite his ability to speak German fluently, he was always marked as an Englishmen by Germans, and as a German by the British, creating a no-man's land where he never knew quite which country he belonged to. With his father a high-ranking official in the Berlin Field Unit, Bernard was inducted into the world of espionage from an early age; he and his best friend Werner Volkmann were used as couriers, transferring money to and from Swiss bank accounts.

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Len Deighton has stated that Bernard's testimony in the books is not reliable. Samson is biased, especially towards his superiors, and is prone to regarding himself too highly. The true nature of his character can be gleaned from reading between the lines, or from the novel Spy Sinker, which is written from the third-person viewpoint.

Deighton's "Winter" take readers back a generation and sets the stage for many of the recurring characters in the series.