Great news for classic crime fans – the people at Penguin are giving us brand new editions of some of the greatest crime and espionage novels ever written, and all under the banner of that distinguished green penguin. Yes, I know most of us have read these books, maybe, as in my case, decades ago, but what a joy it will be to revisit them. The reissues begin on 13th July.
fullybooked2017 
June 23, 2023 at 12:55 pm
Are you a true Sherlockian who discovers enigmas, digs up hidden clues, solves whodunnits and delights in intrigue? If so you should make one fact based espionage novel mandatory reading. It even has a deceptive title, Beyond Enkription. Double agents, disinformation and deception weave wondrously within the relentless twists and turns of evolving events and by the way, the first enigma you’ll encounter is the misspelling of Encryption: suffice it to say, it’s important.
I’m now on my second reading of this titanic spy thriller from The Burlington Files series and I can’t believe how much I failed to spot first time round. Perhaps that is hardly surprising because the owners of TheBurlingtonFiles only recently disclosed that in real life the protagonists were mainly Pemberton’s People in MI6. To understand what that means read the brief intriguing news article dated 31 October 2022 on TheBurlingtonFiles website.
Having read dozens of crime and spy novels of Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and John le Carré quality, I find this matter of fact plain and raw original undisputedly exceptional and curiously compelling. Whether you’re a Cornwell connoisseur, a Deighton disciple, a Fleming fanatic or a Herron hireling, you’ll be thrilled too if you don’t get too picky. After all, just because it lacks John le Carré’s delicate diction and sophisticated syntax doesn’t mean that it isn’t a genuinely thrilling action packed whodunnit. It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti.
Set in 1974, its protagonist Edward Burlington (in real life MI6 codename JJ) was a far from boring accountant, unwittingly working for MI6. It’s so real it made me wonder why bother reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more exciting. Indeed, when he is on the run from international organised crime gangs and Haiti’s TonTon Macoute from London to Nassau and Port au Prince to Miami I wondered if Jason Bourne and The Gray Man were riding slow horses!
Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote this noir narrative. Atmospherically it’s reminiscent of Ted Lewis’ Get Carter of Michael Caine fame. If anyone ever makes a film based on Beyond Enkription they’ll only have themselves to blame if it doesn’t go down in history as a classic espionage thriller.
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