I think reading a classic Len Deighton must be like watching one of the old master painters in action. There's the preparation, the background, the deft brushstrokes, building up layer on layer of colours and nuance in perfect harmony. And then you finally take a step back, reveals a masterpiece....
In the second in this trilogy, Spy Line, Brett, Bernard and Fiona were still in California.Now, in Spy Sinker, we go back in time to when Brett first conceives of his plan to place a double agent in communist Germany.It is in the earliest chapters we learn an important fact. All through the previ...
”Weapons aren’t terrible,” I said. “Areoplanes full of passengers to Paris, bombs full of insecticide, cannons with a man inside at a circus--these aren’t terrible. But a vase of roses in the hands of a man of evil intent is a murder weapon.” Michael Caine is “Harry Palmer”.The protagonist of th...
-Review of Spy Story by Len Deighton-Spy Story by Len Deighton is one of the many spy novels written by this author and it portrays to us how the espionage divisions were used in Great Britain after World War II and before the Cold War during the Soviet Union attack threats. The protagonist of th...
Originally published on my blog here in July 2004.The second of an (otherwise unrelated) trio of Deighton novels concerned with the Second World War, XPD is actually set in 1979, contemporary with its writing. It is close as Deighton has got to the idea driven thrillers of Frederick Forsyth, and ...
Originally published on my blog here in January 2004.The fourth Harry Palmer novel (in which he is still an unnamed narrator; the name was given him for the films) is the most dated of all of them. It relies on a plot device straight from James Bond or even The Man From UNCLE - the network of age...
This is the second in Len Deighton's 'nameless spy' series. (The notion that they're narrated by a real spy recounting real cases that have become unclassified is supported by his never saying his name in the books. In the movies based on some of the books, he's called Harry Palmer.) This was fun...
Every time I read an installment in the Bernard Samson series I think, "Okay, THIS one is my favourite, I swear." Deighton's "Samson Saga" is made up of consistently good thrillers with an excellent narrator and lashings of Deighton's famously detailed descriptions, and Spy Line is no exception. ...
Deighton's spy novels are very low-key affairs with muted details that might go by you until pointed out by the protagonist. Often events will occur that seem to have no relevancy until later. To me it seems that not much will happen until the last third, but in retrospect much is happening. It's...
THIS BOOK IS A FRAUD! THIS BOOK IS A JOKE! THIS BOOK IS AN OUTRAGE! Whew. Okay. Breathe.This was my first Len Deighton book after having heard about him for years. I knew he wrote spy books. I thought they might be like MaClean or Forsyth books. I was dead wrong. This wasn't a spy book. It was a ...