Horse Under Water is the second of Len Deighton

Len Deighton

Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....

's spy novels featuring an anonymous British agent protagonist (named Harry Palmer

Harry Palmer

Harry Palmer is the name of the protagonist of a number of films based on the main character from the spy novels written by Len Deighton. Michael Caine played Harry Palmer in the films based on three of the first four of the published novels featuring this character, and also later in two films not...

 in the film adaptions). It was followed by Funeral in Berlin

Funeral in Berlin

Funeral in Berlin is a spy novel by Len Deighton.- Plot :The protagonist, who is unnamed, travels to Berlin to arrange the defection of a Soviet scientist named Semitsa, this being brokered by Johnny Vulkan of the Berlin intelligence community...

.

Background

The novel is set in 1960, mostly in a small fishing village in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, which was then a dictatorship led by António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...

. It retains the style of The IPCRESS File

The Ipcress File

The IPCRESS File was the first spy novel by Len Deighton, published in 1962.It was made into a film in 1965 produced by Harry Saltzman and directed by Sidney J. Furie, starring Michael Caine as the protagonist....

— multiple plots twists, Gauloises

Gauloises

Gauloises is a brand of cigarette of French manufacture. It is produced by the company Imperial Tobacco following their acquisition of Altadis in January 2008.- Cigarette :...

 cigarettes, grimy, and soot-stained British winter. Horse Under Water is the only one of the series which was not adapted to film. A 1968 film adaptation was planned, but following the poor reception of Billion Dollar Brain

Billion Dollar Brain

Billion Dollar Brain is a 1967 British espionage film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel Billion-Dollar Brain by Len Deighton. The film features Michael Caine as secret agent Harry Palmer, the anti-hero protagonist of the film versions of The IPCRESS File and Funeral in Berlin...

it was abandoned.

In common with several of Deighton's other early novels, the chapter headings have a "feature". In Horse Under Water these are crossword puzzle clues, reflecting the protagonist's habit of endlessly writing and replacing words in crossword puzzles.

The first edition of Horse Under Water published by Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...

 was shorter than the later Penguin

Penguin Books

Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

 edition, which included a detailed description of the anonymous British agent's diving course, and also introduced characters later seen in the book, such as Chief Petty Officer Edwardes.

Plot

The plot centres on retrieving items from a Type XXI U-boat sunk off the Portuguese coast in the last days of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Initially, the items are forged British and American currency, for financing a revolution in Portugal on the cheap. Later, it switches to heroin (the "Horse" of the title), and eventually it is revealed that the true interest is in the "Weiss list" — a list of Britons prepared to help the Third Reich set up a puppet government in Britain, should Germany prevail. Thrown into the mix is secret "ice melting" technology, which could be vital to the missile submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s then beginning to hide under the Arctic sea ice.

Technology

The secret weather buoys generally used by the wartime Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

were not as sophisticated as the one described in the novel. They were not submersible and, at the end of their expected battery life of two months, they were supposed to self-destruct with an explosive charge.