Spy Story

by Len Deighton Book 6 in the Harry Palmer series.

First published 1974

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3.9(305)

After returning from a patrol aboard a nuclear submarine, Patrick Armstrong joins a London war-gaming centre that models Soviet and NATO strategy. The simulations are supposed to remain theoretical, but the data, personalities and institutional rivalries around them begin to echo events outside the computer room. Armstrong gradually suspects that the exercises are being used for purposes no one has explained to him.

The novel joins submarine warfare, intelligence analysis and early computer modelling in a tense picture of 1970s strategic planning. As artificial scenarios begin to shape real decisions, Armstrong is forced to question whether he is studying a possible war or participating in the preparation for one.