An Expensive Place to Die

Very Len Deighton. Very mid '60s. Very Francophile.

The nameless English operator (yes, a young Michael Caine works for the role) is sandwiched between various nameless agencies. Who may or may not be the French government fighting amongst themselves. But someone has the budget to buy detached houses on the Avenue Foch, and yet the poor old operators can't even have decent plumbing.

This is pure Deighton, and pure Paris of around this era. E-type Jags and shared toilets. Corner bars and hare terrine. Evil psychologists. An unusually prescient appraisal of China's future domination (Better than the mid-'60s Chinese government could achieve). But sometimes a champignon is still just a tinned mushroom. I enjoyed this. But as a historical show more curiosity, both in setting and authorship. I'm always going to prefer le Carré over Deighton. The plot is ludicrous. Too many people turn out to be related. Too many bodies just appear and disappear under the police's nose. OK, it's mid '60s Paris, but they're not Algerian. It's worth the read, but it's no George Smiley. show less

No Longer Harry Palmer
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition (September, 2021) of the original Jonathan Cape hardcover (1967)

Dying in Paris is a terribly expensive business for a foreigner. - Oscar Wilde (One of the epigrams used for An Expensive Place to Die)

[2.5] The protagonist in An Expensive Place to Die is yet another nameless spy like the 'Harry Palmer' of the previous quartet (named in retrospect from the Michael Caine films, but not in the novels). Author Deighton however considers this the first of four 'Patrick Armstrong' novels, followed by Spy Story (orig. 1974), Yesterday's Spy (orig. 1975) and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy (orig. 1976). That didn't prevent some of the publishers from attempting to show more associate the book with the popularity of Michael Caine, as seen in the cover below. An Expensive Place to Die was never adapted for film though.

See cover image at https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1179152088...
Cover image from the 1995 Panther edition with the Michael Caine cover. Image sourced from Goodreads

After the 'Harry Palmer' quartet, this book was somewhat of a let down. It suffers from a mostly static Paris location as opposed to the globe-trotting travels of the earlier books. The missing banter between 'Palmer' and his spy chief Dawlish with its shades of upper vs. lower class nuances is the biggest loss. The sometimes cynical dialogue of 'Armstrong' (the character doesn't receive this alias until Spy Story) with the villain Datt or allies Loiseau and Marie is not enough to make up for that.

The plot is also overly elaborate for a payoff that could have been handled much more simply. The Brits and U.S. are seeking to alert Red China to the realities of nuclear fallout (to deter first-strike warmongers) by passing on authenticated information to that effect. They maneuver this through a Paris 'clinic' which is actually a front for blackmail operations and is run by the head villain who is apparently a Chinese agent. To confuse things further the villain is the father of the woman who is the ex-wife of the French police inspector and now lover of one of the baddie's agents. All this for no great reason except complication. The Brit spy is embedded in Paris to help facilitate the handover of data. I had really lost interest by the time the noirish conclusion came around.

An Expensive Place to Die is the 5th of my re-reads of the early Len Deightons (I first read almost all of them in the 60's/70's/80's) after having learned of the Penguin Modern Classics republication of all of his novels which were published during 2021 as outlined in an online article Why Len Deighton's spy stories are set to thrill a new generation (Guardian/Observer May 2, 2021). show less

The 5th in the 7 Harry Palmer books. I'm not really sure if this is a "Harry Palmer" book, as while the main character his only referred to as the "Englishman", he seems somewhat different in nature to that of the previous books - so is probably the first of 4 'Patrick Armstrong' novels. This book doesn't engage there reader at the same level of its predecessors but is still an entertaining read and is a great view of the world of the 1960s - at the time considered of course very modern but now seems like a different and ancient world. The story is mainly more about relationships that hat of spying, with the complex plot only surfacing rapidly at the end of the book. That said, it is an interesting topic of exploring the theme of show more Communist Chinese nuclear war threat in 1967. There is a section towards the end of the book (pg 205) that appears today as very presentient where the protagonist says: "I don't think you are a Marxist at all, I said. You merely relish the downfall of the West. A Marxist at least comforts himself with the idea of the proletariat joining hands across national frontiers, but you Chinese Communists relish aggressive nationalism just at a time when the world was becoming mature enough to reject it. The antagonists reply on pp 205-206 is great too: "[Orwell] warned the bourgeoise to watch for militancy, organisation, fanaticism and thought-planning, while all the time the seeds of their destruction are being sown by their own inadequacy, apathy, aimless violence and trivial titillation. Their destruction is in good hands: their own." for these insights in what is more a moralistic story that a true spy story the book is worth reading. show less

Set almost entirely in France, An Expensive Place to Die is the 5th novel in the Secret File/Unnamed Hero series.

Whilst I felt the story was a bit better than Billion Dollar Brain, I still didn't enjoy it as much as SS-GB & XPD.

It's a decent spy thriller, but I didn't find it as enthralling as some others have.

Enjoyable spy novel mainly set in Paris and read just as we were going there

Paris, ca 1968
Bogen er 'krydret' med en masse franske vendinger, som ikke er oversat. Det er krukket og irriterende!
En ikke-navngiven engelsk agent er i Paris, hvor en hr. Datt har en klinik, hvor vigtige og indflydelsesrige mænd kan få opfyldt deres seksuelle behov, mens hr. Datt sikrer sig lyd- og videooptagelser af det til senere brug. En af pigerne, Annie, bliver dræbt i huset og politiet i form af inspektør Loiseau går efter hr. Datt for at få de kompromitterende billeder og lydoptagelser tilintetgjort. Det hele kompliceres af at der er mange forskellige franske politistyrker hver med deres egen politiske dagsorden. Til sidst bliver Jean-Paul også dræbt, Byrd og Kuang flygter, hr. Datt bliver skudt og foto og bånd bliver show more reddet. En anden historie går ud på at den engelske agent skal (mis)informere kineserne om farligheden af atomvåbennedfald.

Ikke ret spændende bog show less