Billion-Dollar Brain
 cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Len Deighton |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel, Spy Novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 412 pp |
| ISBN | 0-09-985710-3 |
| Preceded by | Funeral in Berlin |
Billion-Dollar Brain is a 1966 Cold War spy novel by Len Deighton. It was the fourth to feature an unnamed secret agent working for the British WOOC(P) intelligence agency. It follows The IPCRESS File (1962), Horse Under Water (1963), and Funeral in Berlin (1964). As in most of the author's novels, the plot of Billion-Dollar Brain is intricate, with many dead ends.
Plot
The unnamed protagonist is ordered to Helsinki by Dawlish, his boss, to suppress a newspaper article, potentially embarrassing to the U.K. government, about to be published by a Finnish journalist. He finds the journalist murdered, and coincidentally meets a young woman who attempts to recruit him into British Intelligence! This woman, Signe Lane, is both romantically connected to and working for the protagonist's old American friend Harvey Newbegin (who also appeared in "Funeral in Berlin"). Newbegin in turn attempts to recruit him into a private intelligence outfit whose network is operated by 'The Brain', a one billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter.
Midwinter is using his agency and private army to start an uprising in Soviet-occupied Latvia[1] in an attempt to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this, and also the fact that a package Newbegin wants delivered from England to Finland contains virus-contaminated eggs stolen from a British research institute, the protagonist treks from Finland through Riga, Leningrad, New York City, Texas, and back to London. He infiltrates Midwinter's organization, braving unforgiving environments, violence, and shifting loyalties, and eventually returns to the Baltic to stop the virus from falling into the hands of both the Soviets and the madman billionaire - and protect British reputations in the process. [2]
Film adaptation
The novel was filmed in 1967 as the third instalment of the Harry Palmer series of films based on Deighton's novels featuring Michael Caine. It was commercially unsuccessful.
References
- ↑ Panek, Leroy (1981) The special branch: the British spy novel, 1890-1980, p. 224. Popular Press at Google Books. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
- ↑ "The Billion Dollar Brain" by Len Deighton, 2015 re-reading.
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