"The Deceiver" - Frederick Forsyth Quiz | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What is The Deceiver's actual name?

Answer: Sam McCready

Gaunt is Sam's deputy who is desperately trying to make the bigwigs rethink sacking his boss. Edwards is the chairman of the hearing who privately doesn't expect the stories told at the hearing to change a single thing (not least because the dismissal order has already come straight down from the very top).

2. Which of the following past cases is NOT one mentioned in the hearing to reiterate The Deceiver's value?

Answer: A Soviet agent coming to London to assassinate Margaret Thatcher

This book is basically these stories (plus another about an IRA/Libyan arms shipment) told in Sam's defence. In between each story is an "Interlude" where the men pause to take a break and Denis Gaunt reiterates that because of these cases like these the Free World will need Sam in the foreseeable future.

3. Who sung the song "Those were the days, my friend?" which the KGB Defector General Orlov listened to in his Virginia safehouse?

Answer: Mary Hopkin

Frederick Forsyth had started off this book by saying "The Cold War lasted forty years. For the record, the West won it. But not without cost. This book is for those who spent so much of their lives in shadowed places. Those were the days, my friends...", which is presumably a reference to the song with the same name.

4. Did the defecting KGB bigshot Colonel Orlov turn out to be genuine?

Answer: No

Colonel Orlov was a real colonel, but his "defection" had been planned sometime ago by devious masterminds in Moscow. He would go over to the CIA and convince them that one of their top operatives was a traitor. Unfortunately the CIA secretly murdered their man before Sam proved Orlov was a liar. The CIA knew who to secretly murder next...

5. When someone defects from the East to the West during The Cold War, what is the term for what he or she offers in return?

Answer: The Price of The Bride

"The Price of the Bride" is the name of the second story in this novel.

6. Whereabouts does The Deceiver's friend Tom Rowse go to make contact with the Libyans who intend to supply the IRA with weaponry?

Answer: All these places

Tom is a retired SAS captain who now writes thriller novels (based on his experiences whilst on duty in Ireland) and he wants no more excitement. At first he turns down Sam's request for help, until Sam mentions the IRA co-ordinator is a man Tom once witnessed kill a little girl and whom Tom has been after for years...

7. Which guest at Tom's hotel in Cyprus is later revealed to be a member of the IRA?

Answer: Both of them

Tom obeyed Sam's instructions and just hung around the hotel waiting for the gunrunners to contact him. He met a beautiful woman on the hotel terrace (and got into more than conversation with her; luckily his wife didn't find out) and kept noticing an old man there out of the corner of his eyes. On the gunrunners' ship at the North Sea Tom and Sam discover both man and woman.

8. On which Caribbean island does the murder and mayhem of chapter four, "A Little Bit Of Sunshine" take place?

Answer: Sunshine Island

Sam is attending a CIA seminar in the US when he reads newspaper reports about the British governor of Sunshine Island being shot. It turns out the shooter is neither the drug-barons nor the Castro supporters who have been trying to get their men elected as governor (but thanks to Sam they are arrested anyway).

It was in fact a little old lady who tells the detective sent from London she wanted the press to come to the island, to realise the candidates for governor were devious and vicious. The police do not find the gun, and suspect Sam forewarned her.

But they can't prove it...

9. What was the occupation of Bruno Morenz's (one of The Deceiver's West German contacts) secret love?

Answer: Prostitute

Morenz had planned to leave his family and run away with Renate once he had done a final job for Sam (contacting a Soviet general in East Germany who had vital Soviet Army information for Sam and the CIA). Morenz knew what Renate did for a living, but he didn't know Renate already had a boyfriend and had no intention of marrying Morenz.

After Morenz had (partly in self-defence) shot Renate and her pimp boyfriend he discovered Renate had a large collection of videotapes. Secretly filmed whenever she was "entertaining" clients! She intended to use that collection to blackmail poor businessmen and statesmen to make a handsome retirement fund for herself and her pimp.

Morenz took some of them with him (with the same idea) before he crossed into East Germany. Unfortunately the murder was discovered and the West German police were after him, as well as the EAST German police who had worked out who he was and wanted the stolen info back. Sam had to sneak into East Germany (against orders) to get the book.

10. The four stories related by Denis Gaunt make the SIS heirarchy decide to keep The Deceiver after all.

Answer: False

The verdict had been decided long before the hearing; Timothy Edwards' hands were tied (though privately he did not like Sam anymore than his superiors). But Sam chose to let it go ahead anyway to remind everyone that the world was still not a safe place to be.

Source: Author Doug_from_NZ

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"The Deceiver" - Frederick Forsyth Quiz

The Cold War is now over. The British SIS wants to cut the jobs of its less-than-controllable agents, and at the top of their list is a man known as "The Deceiver". The poor man shows them his recent successes at a hearing to try to change their minds.

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