Horse Under Water Article Index for
Horse
Website Links For
Horse
 

Information About

Horse Under Water




The novel is set in 1960 , mostly in a small fishing village in Portugal , which was then a dictatorship. The style of '' The Ipcress File '' — multiple plots twists, Gauloises cigarettes, grimy, soot-stained British winter — is retained. Although less well known — unlike ''Ipcress'', '' Funeral In Berlin '' or '' Billion Dollar Brain '', it never was adapted cinematically; ''Horse Under Water'' does compares well to its predecessor novels.

In common with several of his other early novels, the chapter headings have a "feature". In ''Horse Under Water'' these are Crossword puzzle clue chapter titles; vaguely appropriate, since the protaonist agent solves crossword puzzles.

The plot centres on retrieving items from a Type XXI U-boat sunk of the Portuguese coast in the last days of World War II . 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 s then beginning to hide under the Arctic sea ice.