You were only supposed to read the b****y story

With apologies to Michael Caine in the Italian job! This is a wonderful story with themes that resonate today (sadly). I read the book many times and seen the film many times two – one of the best soundtracks ever. The one thing that I found distracting with the story though is the narrator reading with a Michael Caine accent. If this accent was put on then I think that’s a poor decision. If this is the actors real accent, I apologise.

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Not as good as the first three books

The narration is perfect and the main characters remain enjoyable but overall this is not quite up to the standard of the first three books

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Wonderful similes

It is a product of its time thus has slightly dated male female roles and attitudes.

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I knew it was good but this is better than I remem

I found this a bit difficult to get into at first, only because it was the first of the early Deighton's I'd listened to ( as opposed to read) . I initially found James's interpretation of the main character slightly off putting. However I persisted, and his performance really grew on me. He really gets the dark humour across as well as the drama. Really pleased, thank you. I'm now listening to Funeral In Berlin (yes I know I'm going backwards) and it too is really good.

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Bit of a slog to get through, but expands upon the movie

The Billion Dollar Brain is probably my favourite of the three Harry Palmer movies, as it has the Connery era Bond feel to it.

After reading and listening to Funeral in Berlin, I was looking forward to getting around to Billion Dollar Brain.

Narrated again by James Lailey, he breaths life into all the characters and brings more to them than all the actors in the movie.

In terms of Movie vs Book, there is elements of the plot the book does better (Colonel Stok is such a better character in the book, rather than comical character he is in the book) but same time there is elements the movie does better (Anya in the movie is a much better and interesting character than the female lead in the book, Signe, is towards the plot.

Also in the book, General Midwinter is a MUCH better character compared to the z-list Bond character villain in the movie, but the actual brain itself only plays a very small part compared to the movie.

The movie follows our “unnamed hero” (affectionally known as Harry Palmer) in a good old fashion espionage story, where a man from Harry’s past, Harvey Newbegin (who also appeared in the Funeral in Berlin book) after the murder of a journalist in Helsinki.

Our hero is hired by a private intelligence outfit with the aim to bring down the Soviet Union, starting with revolution in the Baltic State of Latvia.

The story follows our hero as he gets in deeper and deeper to uncover a plan that could lead to another war.

It is a globe hopping adventure from London to Helsinki, into the Soviet Union taking in St Petersburg and Riga, before travelling to the United States in Midwinters offices in New York and then his “Brain” in Texas.

Only issue I have is the ending is rather subdued and no real answers, while the movie has the big Bond style ending.

All in all maybe not as good as Funeral in Berlin, but every bit as enjoyable.

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