Billion-Dollar Brain Billion-Dollar Brain Billion-Dollar Brain is a 1966 Cold War spy novel by Len Deighton. It was the fourth to feature an unnamed secret agent working for the British WOOC(P) intelligence agency. It follows "The IPCRESS File" (1962), "Horse Under Water" (1963), and "Funeral in Berlin" (1964). As in most of the author's novels, the plot of "Billion-Dollar Brain" (1967) is intricate, with many dead ends. The unnamed protagonist is ordered to Helsinki by Dawlish, his boss, to suppress a newspaper article, potentially embarrassing to the U.K. government, about to be published by a Finnish journalist. He finds the journalist murdered
The Ipcress File (film) novel was nameless, but in Chapter 5 he remarks, "My name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been." In the opening scenes of the film, Palmer is shown to care little for authority, to indulge in quick repartee and to have an interest in good food. Newspaper cuttings shown in Palmer's kitchen are actually cookery articles written for "The Observer" by Deighton, who was an accomplished cook himself. In a scene where Palmer prepares a meal, the hands in close-up are really Deighton's. There were two immediate sequels starring Harry Palmer: "Funeral