THE DEIGHTON DOSSIER

The online resource about writer Len Deighton

A DEIGHTON MISCELLANY

This section gather in together all the artefacts, images and ephemera associated with or inspired by the books and films of Len Deighton, and it includes some surprising items.

Here you'll find examples of music inspired by Deighton's fiction; board and computer games developed as official and unofficial tie-ins to Deighton movies and books; the questions (and answers) for when Harry Palmer was a specialist subject on Mastermind; and much more besides. You will also find at the bottom a gallery showing the different cover designs for the audiobook versions of many of Deighton's best sellers. It's a cornucopia of curiosities about Len Deighton's works.

Check out the odd and interesting images and items collected together below.

Find out more about collecting Deighton books and ephemera in the separate
Collector's Guide.

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GAMES INSPIRED BY DEIGHTON'S WORKS

Games of whatever kind inspired by books and films are not new - witness the numerous video and board games linked to James Bond, or Harry Potter.

Len Deighton's stories, while proving popular, have not really had much impact on the gaming marketing, bar a couple of odd exceptions detailed below - games associated with The Ipcress File film and the Bliztkrieg books.

Take a closer look at these game tie-ins.

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    The Ipcress File board game
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    Blitzkrieg C64 computer game

MASTERMIND: HARRY PALMER

Deighton Dossier reader Nick Flindall competed – rather successfully, it appears – on an edition of Mastermind in in 2008, sat in the famous black chair, under the spotlight, waiting for John Humphrys to ask the first question on his special subject. That topic? The Harry Palmer novels.

Below is a list of the questions - with answers which are revealed when you click on the question - that Nick answered in 2008. Some of them are pretty challenging.

Find out how many questions you would have got right.

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Mastermind, BBC2, 31 October 2008
Specialist subject: the Harry Palmer novels of Len Deighton
  • Q1. In The Ipcress File, what is the name of Harry Palmer’s new assistant whom he first meets at Lederer’s Coffee house in Soho?

  • Q2. The Funeral in Berlin is arranged to bring which Soviet scientist through the Berlin Wall, under the alias Paul Louis Broum?

  • Q3. What code name is Harry Palmer given in the operation in which Johnnie Vulkan is code-named ‘King’, in Funeral in Berlin?

  • Q4. At which Thames-side pub does Chico lose sight of the man who had been tailing Palmer earlier in Billion Dollar Brain?

  • Q5. What is the codename of Christian Stakowski, who engineers the disappearance of several British scientists in The Ipcress File?

  • Q6. In Funeral in Berlin who does Palmer use to break into Sam Steele’s flat, where he discovers a stack of books on the subject of enzymes?

  • Q7. In Horse Under Water which country’s revolutionary movement, the VNV, wants the money from a sunken U-Boat to finance their activities?

  • Q8. To which Pacific atoll are Palmer, Jean Tonneson and Dalby taken to witness an American atom bomb test in The Ipcress File?

  • Q9. In Billion Dollar Brain under what name does Harry Palmer travel to Helsinki and to America on a false Irish passport?

  • Q10. In The Ipcress File which secret telephone exchange within the federal system does Palmer have to call in order to contact his department?

  • Q11. Which branch of the German Intelligence Service arranges to bring Semitsa out from East Germany in Funeral in Berlin?

  • Q12. What is contained in the brown sphere the size of a golf ball that’s given by Midwinter to new recruits to his organisation in Billion Dollar Brain?

  • Q13. In The Ipcress File, Palmer and Murray arrive too late at which London police station and find Housemartin already dead?

  • Q14. In Horse Under Water, what name is given to the network of embassy or foreign government workers who would feed information back to London?

  • Q15. Most of the chapters of The Ipcress File begin with a short extract from a horoscope reading for which sign of the Zodiac?

  • Q16. What do the three initial “F’s” stand for that feature on the badges worn by all the members of Midwinter’s paramilitary organisation?

DEIGHTON MUSIC

Words are how Len Deighton communicates through his audience. Music, however, does have a role to play in communicating meaning and mood in the TV and film adaptations of Deighton's work, which are considered below.

In addition, however, some readers and fans have used music to fuel their imaginations and to communicate how they think a work of Deighton's inspires them musically, books such as Horse Under Water and Bomber.

Read about how music augments Deighton's written word.

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    The Ipcress File soundtrack
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    Funeral in Berlin soundtrack
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    Billion Dollar Brain soundtrack
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    The Seahorse

AUDIOBOOKS

Most of Len Deighton's fiction books have been published in audiobooks format. The majority were published in the 'eighties and 'nineties in cassette tape format, meaning that long books like the Samson series of novels would require numerous audio cassettes.

Subsequently, some of the books - in smaller number - have been published in CD format and recently in downloadable audio files, reflecting the changes in the media used by readers. Interestingly, many of the audio books published in the 'eighties and 'nineties used cover art different to that on the published original first edition or paperback version of the novel, providing something of interest to collectors.

Below is a gallery showing most of the audiobooks of Len Deighton's novels published for the UK market.

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FUNERAL IN BERLIN PRESSKIT

After the success of Funeral in Berlin, the paperback rights for Deighton's subsequent books in the 'Harry Palmer' series transferred to Penguin.

Desperate to cash in on the phenomenal hardback sales of Funeral in Berlin, and to capitalise on the film production under development by Harry Saltzman, being filmed in Berlin with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, the new marketing and advertising supremo at Penguin books, Tony Godwin, pushed out the marketing boat. A major press visit was organised to take journalists from Southend Airport to Berlin, where they could interview the author and the stars of the film, the surrounding publicity for which would then boost the sales of the Penguin edition.

These images below are from the original press kit given to journalists on this trip, which was a massive financial undertaking at the time for Penguin, but which did contribute to excellent sales of the tie-in paperback.

See a selection of images from the press kit in the gallery below.

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