[Funeral in Berlin] certainly belies Mr Deighton's reputation. He has carried the legitimate devices of throw-away allusive conversation, and of action whose significance has to be puzzled out by the reader, to the point where I spent most of the book wondering what the devil was going on. The development of the story is haphazard, the dénouement thrilling but still more haphazard, as if Mr Deighton had decided he must burst out of his fog in a blaze of fireworks but was not sure how.