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The novel is set around 1960, mostly in a small fishing village in Portugal, which was then a dictatorship. The style of The Ipcress File - multiple plots twists, gauloises, grimy soot-stained British winter - is retained. Although less well known - unlike Ipcress or Funeral in Berlin, it never became a movie - it compares well to his other novels.
In common with several of his other early novels, the chapter headings have a "feature". In Horse Under Water these take the form of each chapter title being a crossword clue. This is vaguely appropriate, since the central character does crosswords.
The plot centers around retrieving items from a type XXI U-boat sunk in the last days of WWII off the coast of Portugal. Initially the items are forged British and American currency, which will be used to help finance a revolution in Portugal on the cheap. Later it switches to heroin (the "Horse" of the title) and eventually it is revealed that the real interest is in the "Weiss list" - a list of Britons who were 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 submarines then beginning to hide under the Arctic sea ice.