This is the 9th Barnard Samson book I’ve read, so clearly I enjoyed the characters that populated these stories and was interested in the kinds of intrigue in which they got entangled. Although these are advertised as standalone books, the reader would lose a lot if the books were not read in order (since the past stories propelled the characters to their current situations). This book tied up most of the loose ends from the other books. As this book was the last in the Barnard Samson series, I will now have to go through a withdrawal process -- and I think that’s the only problem I have with this book.

The last book in the Bernard Samson series, and somehow I'd been expecting a bit more, what I'm not sure. But at the end of the day the character is that of Bernard Samson, who has been progressing towards paranoia throughout the whole of the series, as he sees his life both professional and personal fall apart. The characters have the depth of all Len Deighton characters and have developed well over the course of the series, now they face the end of their world as they know it as the cold war draws to its conclusion. As with all enterprises the corporate view will rule, even if the actual truth is something different and the identified fall guy will fall on his sword even if they are not the only ones responsible and if it doesn't actually fit with the whole truth. So much for the truth will out! Good series!

Didn't like this last book as much as the rest of the series. Seemed that Samson was doing things that were very out of character for him.

I have the audible UK version read by James Lailey

Originally published on my blog here in January 2005.

This is the concluding novel not just of the long running Bernard Samson saga but of Len Deighton's fiction as a whole. It brings to a close a series of attempts to deal with the ending of the Cold War - an event with a big impact for an author of spy fiction: different settings tangential to the genre in [b:Mamista|1409971|Mamista|Len Deighton|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|3083506], [b:City Of Gold|2634462|City Of Gold|Len Deighton|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327966211s/2634462.jpg|3095632], and [b:Violent Ward|1607797|Violent Ward|Len Deighton|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1185811478s/1607797.jpg|3048474], and the story of the downfall of Communism itself in the last trilogy of Samson novels. I suspect that the difficulty Deighton experienced in finding a new theme appropriate to the times was a contributing factor to his stopping fiction writing when he did.

The reader's expectation with Charity is that it will wrap up the remaining loose ends, and leave Bernard and Fiona's future sorted out. Having read Spy Sinker, followers of the series know more about what really happened on the day of Fiona's return to West Berlin than Bernard does - so the big question is really how much does he find out, and how much pain does he bring on himself and those around him by his investigations?

Although Charity is set before the end of Soviet control over Eastern Europe, Deighton makes sure we know what happens after the end of the novel with little ironic reminders - such as describing a falling person as looking "like a toppling statue of a tyrant". The ending itself is rather abrupt; the last chapter comes with something of a jerk. It is really about new beginnings for the characters, starting relationships over again - entirely appropriate, given the huge changes about to impact their world.

Three series characters dominate British spy fiction: James Bond, George Smiley, and Bernard Samson. They are all quite different from each other, even if you could argue that Bernard is very similar to Deighton's earlier Harry Palmer character and something of a mix of the other two. Smiley is all subtle intellectual; James Bond is all brute force action. Bernard does both parts, and this makes him both more exciting to read about than Le Carré's character and more interesting and certainly less unpleasant than Ian Fleming's. More is revealed about Bernard's inner character than about either Smiley or Bond, even though his narration (and neither Smiley or Bond is every allowed the luxury of telling their own story) is written in such a way that it is clear that Bernard is hiding quite a lot. This of course makes him more believable as a character, as does the way that his powers as an intellectual spy master and an action hero are both carefully limited by Deighton, presumably to this end. The series (ten novels in all, including a prequel not involving Bernard personally) is a substantial body of work, intimately connected to the fall of Communist East Germany and thus a major fictionalisation of some of the most important historical events of the last half century.