Spy Sinker

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Len Deighton. Spy Sinker

Cover designer’s note

Spy Sinker

Introduction

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About the Author

By Len Deighton

About the Publisher

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The title of the third book in this middle trilogy, Spy Sinker, conjures an array of interesting possibilities for the designer when attempting to capture it. For those readers who have been following the adventures of Bernard Samson thus far, I am sure they could venture a number of scenarios into which Bernard could be said to be sinking – his relationship with Fiona, Gloria, his growing isolation among his colleagues in the shadowy and labyrinthine world of his work, even his relationship with himself. All of which were considered to some degree or another, but in the end I took the design in a slightly different direction. For me, the mousetrap seemed to perfectly symbolize the idea of subjugating one’s adversary, which in this instance would be employed by the KGB to ‘sink’ their antagonist, Bernard Samson.

The back cover’s vignette is of a Russian nesting doll, or matryoshka, depicting a bemedalled Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet General Secretary. I purchased the set of dolls on Arbat Street, Moscow in exchange for two packets of Marlborough cigarettes. The doll’s content reveals that this KGB agent wears red lipstick from Boots the Chemist …!

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It was easy to see why they couldn’t recover. You ask a man to leave all that he holds most dear, to spy in a strange country. Then, years later, you snatch him back again – God willing – to live out his remaining life in peace and contentment. But there is no peace and no contentment either. The poor devil can’t remember anyone he hasn’t betrayed or abandoned at some time or another. Such people are destroyed as surely as if they’d faced a firing squad.

On the other hand it was necessary to balance the destruction of one man – plus perhaps a few members of his family – with what could be achieved by such a coup. It was a matter of the greater good of the community at large. They were fighting against a system which killed hundreds of thousands in labour camps, which used torture as a normal part of its police interrogation, which put dissenters into mental asylums. It would be absurd to be squeamish when the stakes were so high.

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