Editing Billion-Dollar Brain

{{short description|1966 novel by Len Deighton}}
{{about|the book|the film adaptation|Billion Dollar Brain}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox book |
| name          = Billion-Dollar Brain
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = Billion dollar brain.jpg
| caption = cover of the first edition
| author        = [[Len Deighton]]
| illustrator   =
| cover_artist  =
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = [[Science fiction]], [[spy novel]]
| publisher     = [[Jonathan Cape]]
| release_date  = 1966
| english_release_date =
| media_type    = Print ([[Hardcover|Hardback]])
| pages         = 412
| isbn          = 0-09-985710-3
| preceded_by   = [[Funeral in Berlin]]
| followed_by   = [[An Expensive Place to Die]]
}}

'''''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 Deighton's novels, the plot of ''[[Billion Dollar Brain]]'' (1967) is intricate, with many dead ends.

==Plot==
The [[Harry Palmer#Novels|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 and coincidentally meets a young woman who attempts to recruit him into the British Intelligence.  This woman, Signe Laine, is both romantically connected to and working for the protagonist's old American friend Harvey Newbegin (who also appeared in ''Funeral in Berlin'').  Newbegin in turn attempts to recruit him into a private intelligence outfit, whose network is operated by 'The Brain', a billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter.

Midwinter is using  his agency and private army to start an uprising in [[Latvia]], at the time a part of the USSR, to end Communism in the [[Eastern bloc]] and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West.<ref name="Panek1981">{{cite book|last=Panek|first=LeRoy|author-link=Leroy Panek|title=The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890–1980|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T7HeaP3cU_gC&dq=%22Billion-Dollar+Brain%22&pg=PA233|access-date=29 April 2013|year=1981|publisher=Popular Press|isbn=978-0-87972-178-7|pages=233–234}}</ref> After discovering this and also the fact that a package Newbegin wants delivered from England to Finland contains virus-contaminated eggs, stolen from a British research institute, the protagonist treks from Finland through Riga, Leningrad, New York City, Texas and back to London. He infiltrates Midwinter's organization, braving unforgiving  environments, violence and shifting loyalties, eventually to return to the Baltic to stop the virus from falling into the hands of the Soviets and the madman billionaire and protect British reputations in the process.<ref>"The Billion Dollar Brain" by Len Deighton, 2015 re-reading.</ref>

==Film adaptation==
The novel was filmed as ''[[Billion Dollar Brain]]'' in 1967, the third instalment of the [[Harry Palmer]] series of films based on Deighton's novels, featuring [[Michael Caine]]; it was a commercial flop.

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Len Deighton}}
[[Category:1966 British novels]]
[[Category:1966 science fiction novels]]
[[Category:British science fiction novels]]
[[Category:British spy novels]]
[[Category:Cold War spy novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in Helsinki]]
[[Category:Fiction about bioterrorism]]
[[Category:Cold War in popular culture]]
[[Category:Biological weapons in popular culture]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Spy novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:"Unnamed hero" novels]]
[[Category:Jonathan Cape books]]
{{1960s-spy-novel-stub}}
{{ColdWar-novel-stub}}