How do you view a series of books — or any periodic work, like a long-running TV series? Do you let a single work determine your view of the series, or must you evaluate the whole series as a gestalt with each passing entry?

Spy Line is, at it's heart, a dismantling of the four books leading up to it (with Spy Sinker, its sequel, being a near-callous mockery and derision of those books.) Two thirds of the book are fairly banal and much in the "Samson way" that so comfortably dominated the series (petty, entertaining politics; brutish and clever spycraft; pleasant caricaturing of the British intelligence services) and the other third reveals that the entire plot leading up to these moments have been sleight-of-hand, and every inch of drama we've been subjected to has largely been a feint and a ruse.

A feint and a ruse. But a waste of time? This is an interesting question, and it largely depends on your faith and trust in Deighton. You can charitably interpret this shift as a very wide-lens postmodern critique of spy literature — Bernie's gullibility and snookerdom is a metaphor for our own, and for the misguided sense that any one well-meaning person can make a legitimate difference in late-20th-century global dynamics. Or you can uncharitably interpret it as something like: Deighton loved writing the first trilogy, and wanted to spend more time with these characters, so he sat down and thought about how to make a second trilogy, but in doing so he burnt most of his forest to the ground.

As much fun as I've had with Deighton's writing, I have to go with the latter interpretation. You can point to little hints and clues in the original few books that this was indeed all part of his master plan, but characterization makes no sense, and other things along the fringes don't lend Deighton much more credibility — the entire stamp collection escapade, the way in which Samson's red notice is entirely forgotten and everyone pretends it never happened. Indeed, this feels like a writer's room trying to figure out a way to make a compelling fifth season of a show that should have ended after its third: you don't have to dislike the characters to know that the time for their exit has long-gone.

★★★