A book developed out of a men's magazine - Town - this guide to everything alcohol is hip and very 'sixties.
Want to know which cocktails to serve or what London's public houses were like? Drinks-man-ship is the book for you.
Much of the guidance and drink culture set out in the book is now sadly lost, but it's a wonderfully evocative depiction of London's nightlife in the 1960s.
The Len Deighton Companion - easily obtainable online - is a terrific resource for any reader.
Written by his friend Edward Milward-Oliver, the companion - and the Annotated Bibliography - are full of interesting titbits.
Packed full of background information on every novel and book, it also has a short interview with the author.
The books to which Deighton has provided are eclectic and fascinating.
He's contributed to books on aviation, food, biographies, wartime escapes, aeroplane technology; although the Deighton Dossier has tracked most down, undoubtedly there are other books out there with Deighton forewords for collectors to be aware of that we haven't found.
If Deighton's put his name to a book, you can reason that there's a pretty good reason for reading it.
As one of the world's top spy writers, during the Cold War particularly his stories provided ammunition and evidence for academics looking at what these stories said about the wider world.
Literature academics like Lars Ole Sauerberg have gone into great detail undertaking textual analyses of Deighton's more popular books
This part of the website is self-explanatory.
It is a repository for any book which isn't one of Len Deighton's novels, or non-fiction books, or anything to do with his writing on food and cooking.
So, that means gathered here in this section are the books which Deighton himself has not written in full, but to which he's made a substantial contribution, such as the section on food in How To Be A Pregnant Father, a self-help guide for new fathers, or the Ark magazines, which he edited and provided some of the illustrations to.
Also here are the long list of books to which Deighton has provided either a foreword or introduction. Many of these books are on topics close to Deighton's own personal interests, particularly military history and military technology.
Finally, you'll find here a list of useful reference books which are about Len Deighton or contain substantial entries on the author and his books, to provide a new perspective on his writings.
If you are curious about how widely Deighton's written words go, then be curious no more and start looking at this section.
Len Deighton has written nearly one hundred books as an author.
However, he has also made significant contributions to the works of other authors where his expertise or specialist knowledge has been brought to bear.
Like much of his other non-fiction work, his contributions to other books have been varied and covered a range of subjects, from a gentlemen's guide to the perfect drink and dinner party menu, the morality of warfare through to the perils of fatherhood.
This section introduces some of the books to which Len Deighton has made a substantial contribution.
Summary
The subtitle of this book is 'Town's album of Fine Wines and High Spirits: Edited by Len Deighton. As a result, this is not strictly a Deighton book. However it has all the hallmarks of Deighton's sixties persona and the characters retelling the drink-related stories are the sort of people found in Len Deighton's London Dossier and around the dinner table at his Southwark flat.
The contributors are friends and acquaintances of Deighton's who know good food and drink and know how to enjoy themselves. Articles by journalists, writers, experts and entertainers include the history of gin, a guide to the form of drinking abroad, single malts for whisky lovers and a tour through Europe's biggest vineyards. It contains some wonderful photos that are redolent of the colour and style of the era in London.
Why it's interesting
The front cover image of Len Deighton with a 'dolly bird' reflects his position in the 'sixties as very much London's man about town - writer, raconteur, gourmand and party host. Len was known for hosting in-demand dinner parties at his south London home at which people like Mick Jagger, Michael Caine and Paul McCartney would participate. The writing is vivid and evokes a period when bacchanalian revelry was not frowned upon and the pub was the domain of the bloke.
Sample text
'There is a popular fallacy - much encouraged by Francophiles - that only recently have the British been initiated into the mysteries of wine. This is nowhere near true. Admittedly, we produce no wine - let's not quibble about cottage wines, ginger wine or the ancient vineyards of Gloucestershire. But this was no handicap. Britannia, after all, ruled the waves. Nor should we forget that Henry II's marriage gained us the vineyards in Bourdeaux, and we kept them for three centuries. Claret is, in effect, and Empire wine, like South African Sherry or New York State Champagne.' - Anthony Haden Guest.
Related facts
Town was a successor to Man about Town magazine which ran in the early sixties, published by Cornmarket; the success of the magazine led to the company becoming Haymarket publishers, owned by Michael Heseltine. The magazine became a glossy monthly for men. In one sense it was ahead of its time. Men's fashion was at the margin of acceptability and men's magazines relied almost entirely upon their willingness to peddle soft porn. The magazine relied for revenue on the advertising industry, and on the wish of art directors and copywriters to see their work displayed in this pace-setting publication.
The front cover of the book comes from an article in Town magazine in which Deighton and the cover model - Patti Boyd - are shot from both the front and the back of the Christmas issue, for a feature on seasonal drinking.
Summary
Written three years after the first James Bond was released in the cinemas, and clearly capitalising on the global interest in all things James Bond following the success of the film series, this paperback book has contributions from Ian Fleming himself (interviewed), Len Deighton, Georges Simenon and a host of other writers and expert contributions. As one would expect, it covers a variety of themes, such as profiling Sean Connery, looking at the weapons and gadgets used by Bond, and Ian Fleming's treatment of female characters in the Bond books.
Why it's interesting
Len Deighton's contribution is second-hand. That is, the chapter on Deighton and Fleming is a recounting by journalist Peter Evans of a lunch - the only lunch meeting - between Ian Fleming and Len Deighton in 1963 set up by the Daily Express. The meeting was positioned as the master spy storyteller meets the new kid on the spy fiction block, following the success of The Ipcress File. Both men were complimentary of each other's work but, while the dinner seems to have been perfectly pleasant, there's no sense in which the admiration went beyond the purely professional, certainly on Fleming's part. Much of the text is a verbatim account of the conversation, which covered background, food, military experiences and guns. A short essay but, in the context of the success of these two giants of spy fiction, intriguing.
Sample text
'Some fifteen minutes late, Deighton arrived - an untidy man in one of those 1963 suits with the 1957 price tags. He made it look lumpy. On his cuff-links were colour pictures of Littlehampton. He is a man who looks in a perpetual state of surprise.
'This is a bit posh, isn't it?' he said, shaking Fleming's hand. 'They very nearly didn't let me in downstairs.''
Summary
Published just twenty-three years after the end of the Second World War, this collection of essays by journalists and historians is focused on the British experiences about Rommel and the Wehrmacht in North Africa. It is very comprehensive and varied in themes examine: subjects covered include the desert poets, the intelligence operations of both sides and a glossary of the desert slang used by Montgomery's troops. A further paperback edition (right) was published by Ballatine.
Why it's interesting
What makes this book particularly interesting is that it includes contributions from Field Marshall Montgomery, who was in charge of British troops in the African theatre. He provides a comprehensive day-by-day account of the Battle of Alamein from a British perspective.
Len Deighton's contributions to this book - and there are two - are both reproductions of articles written for the Sunday Times originally the year before. Ironmongery of the Desert looks at the materiel used by both sides during the battle, and Deighton recounts how - due to supply challenges - generals on both sides were required to make full use of their equipment and re-purpose vehicles for the particular demands of desert warfare. Meanwhile, The Private Armies is an examination of the separate guerrilla units of both sides which fought alongside the conventional forces. For example, he looks at the example of the 'weekend explorers', British nationals who began desert motoring for fun in the 1920s, and who in the Battle began doing behind the lines missions for General Wavell such as laying mines in the desert.
Sample text
'The Long Range Desert Patrol threw bombs into car parks, shot-up tented camps and roared down main roads with headlights on and guns blazing, but these activities were extra-curricular. These bearded brigands knew that their most important function was the collection of intelligence.'
Summary
This book is a series of interviews with what the author Bateman describes as "the big names in British Cookery today". In the 'sixties, that definitely included Len Deighton because of the reputation garnered through his cook strips, the launch of the Action Cookbook the year before and his reputation as one of London's top dinner party hosts. The chapter on Deighton is part of a section entitled Private Cooks. The author interviews Deighton in his kitchen as he prepares food, making observations on his character and his skills as a cook. Even just a few years into his 'fame' as a writer, familiar tropes are referenced: his art school training; his love of privacy; his time in the RAF; his thoroughness as a researcher.
Yet much of the content is focused on Deighton's love of food and his skills as a cook. Deighton talks about his triumph of making his first Sunday lunch as a child; then his time working in restaurants working as an assistant pastry chef (the Festival Hall restaurant) and, most interestingly, the origins of how his sketches and notes made to assist his own cooking transformed - with the help of Raymond Hawkey - into the cookstrips which made him famous.
As well as discussing food and nutrition with Bateman, Deighton demonstrates his near-obsessive attention to detail on projects by talking about the right way to store different foods and the important utensils that any keen chef must have in his or her kitchen. It emerges, from the text, that at the time his favourite vegetable was mange tout. The chapter ends with a selection of recipes by Deighton, with the text contributed by him; these include Polish beetroot, phoney Chinese dish, Suriyaki and péches flambées.
Why it's interesting
It's one of the most interesting interviews in giving a flavour of Len Deighton's life away from the role of international spy author and more towards how pad attention also to his love and mastery of food.
Clearly, making a roulade is approached in much the same way as a book - preparation, research, good technique and attention to detail. He was trained as a pastry chef and it's fascinating to read his views on the science and reasoning behind the making of a good short pastry - it's all down to the expanding air and how it's handled.
Sample text
'He [Deighton] thought that what was bad in British and American cooking stemmed from a desire to invent instead of a desire to work to tested rules and recipes - which was what made French cooking rather good. His idea of what was worst in cookery was summed up by a piece of pineapple taken from a tin and balanced on a piece of square ham, and called Hawaii on the menu.'
Summary
In the nineteen thirties, during the Spanish Civil War, 150 writers were asked a simple question - whether they were for or against the government of Republican Spain. This was turned into a famous work, Authors take sides on the Spanish War.
30 years after that, with Vietnam now the conflict under discussion, it was designed by the editor Cecil Woolf to undertake the same exercise with a "cross-section of the intellectual community" in the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union to ask the question - 'Are you for, or against, the intervention of the United States in Vietnam. Among the contributors were such luminaries as Kingsley Amis, Isaiah Berlin, Daphne du Maurier and Thor Heyerdahl. Len Deighton also contributed a short couple of paragraphs which were much shorter than most of the other contributors.
Why it's interesting
It's impressive the list of names that are contributing, which was at the time the cream of the community of letters on both sides of the Atlantic in many respects. In retrospect, it's interesting to read how Vietnam was seen at the time and the earnestness of the contributions. There were, clearly, many intellectuals rooting for the communists but also, looking through the document, a surprising range of other opinions too. Len Deighton's contribution was short and to the point, very much written in his matter-of-fact straightforwardness; his inclusion, only five years after the publication of The Ipcress File, demonstrates clearly that by this time he was highly regarded within literary circles, sufficiently so to be asked to contribute alongside such luminary voices.
Sample text
Len Deighton: "The US intervention in Vietnam was neither benign nor clever. The present situation is morally wrong as well as exceedingly dangerous, but it would be a mistake to imagine that there is now any lasting solution that would be quick or easy, or one that can be described in a few weeks."
Summary
An instructional guide for first-time fathers, the book - largely written by Peter Mayle - combines simple text with illustrations by Arthur Robins. It contains chapters on: a wife's cravings and what a husband can do about them; is there a sex life during pregnancy?; can your bank balance cope with the arrival of triplets among others?
It is light-hearted in tone. In the middle section of the book, Len Deighton was commissioned to provide ten pages of text and illustrations - following the style originally devised for the Action Cook Book - giving hints and tips to the expectant father who is having to cope with the fact his wife is no longer interested in staying in the kitchen (this was the 1970s!). He provides recipes for the simplest possible meals, including how to cook a baked potato, an omelette, even a sandwich!
Why it's enjoyable
It's a light-hearted read - the cartoons make it an easy read for fathers having to cope with a change in lifestyle - and the advice offered seems pretty sensible.
Deighton's contribution recognises that most men - despite the launch of his cook book in the 'sixties - were still at the time relative strangers in the kitchen and needed basic, simple-to-make food. He assumes no knowledge on the part of the reader, offering advice about how to measure ingredients, how to shop effectively and how you can get away with making omelettes without the need for a special omelette pan. As a father himself, you suspect that Deighton was drawing from his own experiences with this contribution.
Sample text
'All of these [soups] need a couple of spoonful of cream to brighten them up. A package of crackers - saltines or Ritz for instance - can make any soup more attractive. A more ambitious garnish - croutons - can be prepared in five minutes while the soup is heating. Take a slice of white bread, remove the crusts and cut the rest of it into pieces about the size of sugar cubes. Fry these golden into a large spoonful of fat. Butter gives the best colour but burns easily.'
Related fact
The author is the same Peter Mayle who in the 1980s became famous for a series of books - including A Year in Provence - detailing his life as a British emigré in Provence, France, having left his career in advertising.
Summary
This is a collection of anecdotes and memories about dinners and meals of all kinds, edited by the late actor Derek Nimmo. He has collated contributions from a range of eminent people: actors, writers, royalty, astronauts even. The book gives an insight into special dinners, eating disasters, historical dinners and the recipes and gastronomic inspiration which turns a regular meal into a great dinner.
Deighton's contribution is to consider what, or rather when, dinner actually is, by using the example of what dinner is in France.
Why it's interesting
Deighton's contribution reflects his long-standing relationship with French food and gastronomic culture. In his two page contribution Deighton considers when, in history, meals have traditionally been held and considers the difference between dinner and supper, the early evening meal. In fact, diner has traditionally meant a lunchtime meal in England and France. In rural France, he writes, rather than dinner the evening meal is called la soupe, from which we get the English supper.
Sample text
'Today most people eat between 7pm and 9pm. But is it dinner? In France, as in Britain and Ireland and other places too, people who eat their main meal at midday call it dinner (diner). In France's rural areas the evening meal is often called la soupe or souper (supper). If a Frenchman asks you to join him for a pot-luck meal (a most unlikely possibility, may I add, since the French are reluctant to invite people into their homes, especially for an informal meal), he would say, 'Venez manger le souped avec nous?''
Summary
This is a collection of 100 recipes from famous people over sixty, published to raise money for a charity for the elderly.
While other contributors provide simple recipes, Deighton - given his gastronomic knowledge and reputation as a food writer - provides a short essay on fish dinners.
Why it's interesting
There is much in his contribution that is redolent of the combination of history, tradition, science and cooking technique that readers find in his Deighton's other food books.
He references his home in Portugal by the sea where, naturally, he and his family eat a lot of fish. He provides ideas for simple fish dishes which require little cooking or preparation, recognising that more elderly readers would appreciate this. For example he recommends eating Buckling, which are smoked herrings that require no cooking at all.
Sample text
'If I am alone and working hard I make a quick and delicious meal by putting a kipper in a jug and then pouring boiling water on to it. After five minutes, drain the fish and serve it. (You might prefer to buy filleted kippers.) For a more elaborate meal scrambled egg provides a very good accompaniment to the kippers. Don't forget the wholemeal bread and butter.''
Summary
This book brings together historians and writers to consider every aspect of Rudolf Hess' famous 1941 flight to Scotland from Nazi Germany.
Deighton's contribution is of essay length - eighteen pages - and considers in Deighton's characteristic style the flight aspects of the story, looking at Hess' history as an aviator and his preparations for the flight.
Why it's interesting
He seeks to address conspiracy theories which question that Hess could have made the 900-mile flight to Scotland in the dark, over the North Sea. He points to his flying skills developed after the war, when Hess was one of the few German aviators to fly after 1920. When in power, Deighton highlights the many visits to plane and armaments factories made by Hess as the Deputy Fuehrer of Germany.
Deighton points out how Hess meticulously planned the flight, having extra-large fuel tanks fitted to the Messerschmitt Bf 110 bomber which he flew on his ill-fated flight to seek a peace deal between Britain and Germany. He also explains how Hess managed to make the flight without a guidance system.
Sample text
'Engine technology of that time prevented aircraft going high enough over Scotland to receive the German [radar] beams. Certainly no Bf 110 was equipped to do so. Finally we have to remember that to be guided to Dungavel, Hess would have needed Luftwaffe technicians and operators to align the intersecting beams for him. It was a lengthy and difficult task. This would have meant considerable loss of confidentiality for Hess and, after the war, one of those in the know would surely have made this public. Lastly, and most persuasively for me, there is the character of Hess himself. This flight was to be Hess's 'Everest'. It was to be one noted only for bringing peace between two warring nations but also for being the remarkable feat of airmanship that it certainly was. Hess never intended asking anyone to line up radio beams over Dungavel to help him find his way there. This was to be a solo triumph.''
Summary
This book is a collection of recipes and stories from celebrities across the design world. Len Deighton is included because before he became a writer he was an accomplished illustrator and book cover designer. The book is published by Baseline Magazine and edited by its editor, Veronica Reichert. Among the contributors are Zandra Rhodes, Arnold Schwartzman and Martin Lambie-Nairn.
Why it's interesting
Not surprising, this book is well-designed and put together. From the striking red cover, the metal ring binding rather than conventional stitched binding, and the unconventional six, this book is as much about communicating visually as it it through the palate.
Deighton chooses a simple recipe for Lasagne al forno, for which he also provides a new, cookstrip-style illustration. The story behind this choice - and the fact the steam is the most desirable constituent of hot food - came from his experiences eating lasagne in Italy.
Sample text
'The head waiter explained how cooked lasagne sheets arranged in wavy layers traps air, makes steam and thus makes a heavy dish into a light one.'
Summary
This book is a collection of stories by different thriller and crime writers who are members of The Detection Club, a club for authors of whom Len Deighton is now the longest-standing member. This collection is dedicated to him for that achievement.
Why it's interesting
With contributions from a wide range of authors, including Val McDiarmid, Iain Rankin and John Le Carre, each of whom writes a treatise or essay on the different aspects of the writing process. It includes entries from well over a hundred authors, both living and dead, all of whom are members of The Detection Club.
Deighton's contribution over fourteen pages is called Different Books; Different Problems; Different Solutions. Essentially it is the author recounting his experiences as a writer of nearly sixty years. In his chapter he shares many anecdotes (some well worn, others new) and passes on his tips to other writers about what he did that made his books very successful. For instance, he talks a lot about the value of prior research.
Sample text
'I have abandoned three books half way through, and it is a miserable experience.'
As an internationally renowned author, Len Deighton is a 'name', a celebrity author whose reputation proceeds him and whose endorsement of any writer, through a supportive introduction or foreword, can make a difference to sales and readership. Thus, any Deighton introduction was for many years a sought after commodity for many writers.
What is clear is that while demand for him to lend his name to a book was high, Deighton has been selective in which books he has chosen to provide some accompanying words for, and those he has contributed to reflect either an area of existing interest for him or is a book written by someone he trusts or has worked with. So, many of the introductions and forewords are to books - some, often, quite specialist and certainly not commercially successful - dealing with military history and technology, or other related areas of interest such as aeroplane technology.
Deighton has also been generous in giving his imprimatur to unknown writers who have done original research in a field of interest and to whom his introduction would make a real difference to general interest in their book
This section will guide you to pretty much every book for which Len Deighton has written a foreword or introduction.
Summary
This book is exactly what the title suggests: a mixture of textual history and black and white images from Luftwaffe archives, telling the story of the development of Germany's air force after 1935 and its role in the Second World War. The author, a former pilot, was able to access many German archives and speak to former Luftwaffe pilots, making this book authentic and detailed in its approach. His book recounts how in six short years the Luftwaffe rose from nothing to being one of the finest air forces in Europe, making the German Blitzkrieg tactics in the early years of the war possible.
Deighton's foreword
Len Deighton has had a long standing history of interest in the development of military technology and materiel, and indeed some of his early writing in newspapers was on this very subject. His foreword bristles with technical details and evidence of much research on the subject; for instance, he opens his foreword with a short recounting of the Luftwaffe raids on Rotterdam in 1940, which he says was a precise, targeted attack and not the blanket bombing presented by Churchill in his official history. Clearly, Deighton has some respect for the fighters of the Luftwaffe - as he did for the US and British flyers - and is anxious in his foreword to make the point that often, the Luftwaffe history has been exaggerated and misreported. This book, he believes, is an expert response to some of the inaccuracies associated with other writing on the Luftwaffe.
Sample text
"It is not small feat to relate the history of the Luftwaffe in such a compact form and yet here are the personalities, equipment, aircraft and even the military background to the Luftwaffe's changing fortunes in the decade of its official existence."
Summary
This Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story featuring Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1914 and was one of his last works. It tells the tale of Holmes solving a foul murder in a moated manor house in Sussex, England. Here he uncovers an earlier and more grimmer tale of lawlessness and wholesale slaughter in a mining valley in the United States, and leads him to grapple with his nemesis, the criminal master-mind Moriarty. The publisher is Jonathan Cape, which was also Deighton's publisher for most of his early works.
Deighton's foreword
Len Deighton is an aficionado of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's celebrated Sleuth and has written elsewhere about it, not least in his novella Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle. In this foreword he explains a little of the origins of Doyle's literary career as a 27-year-old, coming at a time when science was giving new impetus to police investigations through things like photography and spectrography and which was starting to develop the new field of criminology. Deighton highlights particularly the similar approaches taken by Holmes and medical practitioners, of which Conan Doyle was a relatively failed example. Many of Holmes' stories begin in his 'consulting room' in Baker Street, where Holmes appraises his customers like a doctor appraises a patient.
Sample text
"Sherlock Holmes is by no means dead. He was probably pontificating in ancient Egypt, for the history of criminal investigation began with the examination of the corpse, and medical men - or medicine men - have always done it. So it is not surprising that Dr Joseph Bell and Dr Conan Doyle played such an important part in the formative years of modern criminology."
Subject
Merlin Minshall was a member of the special branch of the British Naval Intelligence during the war, and is quite a character. Minshall worked for Ian Fleming throughout the Second World War being involved in espionage and as a result of his exploits it is claimed by some that he was the inspiration for James Bond.
Minshall was unwittingly sucked into the world of Nazi espionage during an innocent sailing trip, he was seduced by a lovely but lethal German agent and met Field Marshall Göring face to face.
He was the first man to cross the Sahara on a motorcycle and while travelling through the Congo, he accidentally discovered a secret German army!
Romania set the scene for the height of espionage activity - when he single handedly pirated a ship from under Nazi eyes and blew up a vital link in German tanker communications. The book is full of such stories that initially sound unbelievable but, the more you about the man, eminently true.
Deighton's foreword
Minshall had become a friend of Deighton's and regularly told him fantastic stories over dinner of his exploits - frequently unbelievable, but nevertheless true. Deighton encouraged him to seek a publisher and gave him guidance and encouragement with the text. It is a short foreword, but what comes across is Deighton's admiration for his friend.
Sample text
'Whatever this man does, is done with energy and determination. Merlin Minshall professional photographer has had his photos published in many newspapers and magazines. His most notorious sitter was Hermann Goering. Minshall's motor racing career culminated in him receiving the Foreign Challenge Trophy from the hands of Mussolini after winning it in what was, at that time, the longest motor race in the world. When recently I was talking to him about my journey in the Sahara desert, he told me that he was the first person to cross it on a motorcycle.'
Subject
Myrtle Allen was an Irish cook who ran an award-winning restaurant at Ballymaloe which was world-famous and had at the time of the book's publication recently taken over the running of the Parisian restaurant, La Ferme Irlandaise.
Typical recipes include chicken with turmeric, puolade a la chateau Marie, lamb noisettes in mint and butter sauce and bavarian apple cake. A paperback edition (right) was also produced.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton holds quality chefs in high regard, and his introduction recognises that unlike many cookbooks - which are written by writers who aren't chefs - this book is written by a dedicated and professional cook, whose food he has enjoyed many times.
Sample text
'We all know of smart little restaurants where they make their own pork terrine, but at Balymaloe they raise their own pigs and make everything from salt pork to sausages, not forgetting black puddings. A customer looking forward to crab or lobster would do well to speak with Myrtle in advance, for it won't have come out of the deep freeze but out of the sea.
Like the lobsters and the pork, lamb and beef will all be local produce.''
Subject
This book was published as an introductory guide to anyone taking their first steps in word processing.
Looking back, the advice and the technology under discussion appears archaic, but at the time when PCs cost a hefty proportion of the annual wage, very basic word processing programmes were state of the art.
Chapters consider the hardware open to buyers (with prices quoted for a good word processing machine of between $2,000 and $3,000), the elements of a good word processing programme (does anybody still use Scripsit, described here as 'one of the leading programmes'?) and choosing an automatic dictionary and grammar checker.
It's a short enough book and great fun for anyone who wants to recall the days before Microsoft Word became ubiquitous. The author, Ray Hammond, is described as a 'professional writer' and uses his literary connections to include snippets from interviews with Len Deighton, Dorothy Dunnett and Tom Sharpe.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton has always regarded himself as a connoisseur of technology and was what is known nowadays as an early-adopter: he owned one of the first Word Processing IBM computers in the UK. This comes across in his foreword, where he shares his experiences. Interestingly, he insists that he still finds that his dedicated word processor still suffices for writing his novels, however he also uses a word processor with a screen, which he advises should have a 'scroll function.'
Sample text
'Len Deighton had described himself as "trapped" by his word processor.
When his family spend time in France he is forced to remain in his house in Ireland simply because that is where his word processor is. If he's away from it, the amount of work that can be done is minimal.
Moving a large word processor around is difficult and thus it might be suggested that, for all its benefits, computer aid robs writer of their freedom. This has certainly been the case, but now things are changing.'
Subject
This book drew on the latest developments in computer mapping technology to provide a new, three-dimensional perspective on the great battles of history. By today's computing standards, where film producers can imagine complete battlefields in incredible detail and man them with thousands of individual characters, the illustrations are static and limited in scope. Yet they do provide a fascinating new angle to understanding history-making battles such as Hastings, Omdurman, Culloden, and Arnhem.
Each 3D map is analysed in detail, with clear guidance showing how each battle developed and the crucial decisions made by the opposing generals. Hand illustrated and beautifully coloured by chief illustrator Harry Clow, the maps excel in allowing the reader to place the events in their geographic context.
Deighton's introduction
In a short introduction, Deighton highlights the importance of the development of new map designs in helping writers and historians to understand the decisions generals have made which have shaped the course of history. As a writer for whom research and detail are crucial to understanding and presenting the complexities of the battlefield clearly, Deighton welcomes the development of 3D computer modelling as a "brilliant new concept" which allows writers to look anew at well-known historical events.
Sample text
'"Take the high ground" is the best-known military order. Why? ask the uninitiated. Because from the high ground the low ground can be observed and fired upon. It is not easy to interpret a contour map to find the high ground and for this reason the army uses sand tables to reproduce the hills and valleys so that bored subalterns can be subjected to those tedious exercises that used to be called TEWTs, Tactical Exercises Without Troops."
During my long years of researching Blitzkrieg (a book about the Panzer divisions in May 1940), I made a point of visiting the terrain through which the German fought. Then, a year or so later, I went back again, when it became clear that the weather, water levels, the 'going' of the land, and the visibility, in May is quite different from the cold leafless days of winter.'
Subject
This is a book for the dedicated aviation enthusiast only. It is a record of dramatic wartime aviation incidents revealed by the new science of aviation archaeology.
By examining crash sites, and employing new techniques to reconstruct events, the author brings out the extraordinary stories of the brave pilots whose lives ended in such tragic circumstances.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton reveals that he first read about McLachlan's work as he was researching for one of his books (presumably, Airshipwreck).
He applauds the new science of aviation archaeology as an important element of the capture of our aviation history. It's clear he has a lot of respect for aviation pioneers.
Sample text
''Wreckage recovered - courage recalled' [the original title] was self-evidently about what some people are calling aviation archaeology. Sometimes I hear it deplored: I hear people saying that there is something bad about recovering wreckage, and sometimes the bodies, of fallen aviators.
I don't quite follow the argument and urge no relative to feel distressed. If it was my father, my brother or my son I would not prefer that he remains forgotten in some unmarked spot.'
Subject
An autobiography by journalist John Peet, who defected to East German after serving for many years as a sleeper agent in East Berlin while serving as Reuters' Chief Correspondent. A schoolboy Marxist, Peet has a lifelong belief that fascism was wrong and that communism was the answer. He was recruited by Russian intelligence, and his journalism served as a cover. When this was no longer tenable, he moved permanently to East Berlin where he published an English language monthly. He was a friend of Len Deighton's and provided him with useful background research on East Germany which became important in the development of many of Deighton's novels.
Deighton's introduction
Over four sides of text, Deighton talks about his knowledge of and relationship with Peet, whom he describes as a newspaper man of the old school. Deighton first met Peet in the 'sixties in Leipzig, when he met him through a mutual East German friend. He describes Peet as somewhat of an evangelist for communism, but recognises his tremendous research skills. He writes that though living in East German, Peet remained an Englishman at heart and someone whom he found intriguing and warm all the time they knew each other.
Sample text
'Born immediately before the Russian revolution his life provides unfamiliar historical footnotes for our lifetime, a period dominated by brutal religious and political intolerance. Although he disliked the old school tie, his combat role in the Spanish Civil War made him one of a very special elite, recognised in the West but of even more account in Eastern Europe. His life is a puzzle, but them to some extent everyone's life is a puzzle. Read this book; it is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the contradictory world we live in.'
Subject
This is an illustrated history of the famous French army force filled with hundreds of superb photographs from the history of the Legion in Africa and elsewhere.
Founded in 1831 by decree of King Louis-Philippe, the Legion has developed an aura of mystery and heroism since then.
Photographer Young was given unprecedented access to the normally secretive Legion, interviewing commanders and men who joined the force for a number of reasons and find in its rank a surrogate family and a safe place to escape their problems. The book includes an in-depth reference section detailing the histories of the different regiments in the Legion.
Deighton's introduction
Deighton identifies with the enigma that is the Legion and its role in various wars, in particular the Second World War and the Algerian War of independence in the 1950s, as well as the Legion's close links to General de Gaulle. Deighton writes that he has known John Robert Young since the 1960s, recognising his dedication over the years in telling the definitive story of the Legion and gaining unique access to the force that no other journalist has ever had. He climbed mountains with the soldiers, went on patrol with them, lived the life of the legionnaire in the desert, and this contributes to the authenticity of the history.
Sample text
'Thousands of miles away from Orange, Young found himself cutting his way through the rain forest of French Guiana. The Legion patrols the Brazil border and protects the European rocket facilities. Look seaward and you can see the silhouette of Devil's Island. No talk of desertion here; no one has ever succeeded in getting through the jungle alive. All this time John Robert Young lived the hard life of a Legionnaire.
They gave him a Legionnaire's clothing and equipment complete with combat jacket with the name tab YOUNG: all was ready and waiting. He slept in the jungle, ate Legion rations (and sometimes wild boar), and listened to the small talk and continued taking superb photos.'
Subject
This book is a hardback facsimile of the original hand-written manuscript by Conan Doyle of one of the last Sherlock Holmes novels, from the collection of a noted Holmes fan, Marvin Epstein. Deighton, a noted Holmes fan, provides an introduction to this special, limited edition; his introduction was also published separately in an edition of 100 soft-back copies.
Deighton's introduction
He explores the development of 'popular fiction' over the last century, which has to-date, he writes, largely escaped much academic attention. He writes that any study of popular fiction cannot ignore the works of Conan Doyle, whose novels appeal to a readership from ballet dancers to bus drivers. Deighton explains how he was brought up reading Holmes novels, and he still reads them this his [then] small children. He explores the idea of Conan Doyle as practitioner and technician, his contribution to the then developing science of forensic science and the central role of science in helping Holmes solves cases, and the wide experiences of Conan Doyle's life which shaped his main character and his stories.
Sample text
'Conan Doyle was a physician. It must be a good training for popular writers. A. J. Cronin and W. Somerset Maugham are two other ex-physicians whose works come immediately to mind. The benefits are obvious. Doctors have a scientific training and the natural curiosity which this promotes. People who become doctors are unlikely to have had their youth mangled by the stultifying ambition to become a professional writer.'
Subject
This is a guide to the 100 top crime novels of all time, published by the booksellers Hatchards . The credibility of the selection comes from the fact that the selections are made by members of The Crime Writer's Association, of which Len Deighton was a member.
Each chapter is introduced by a master writer of the genre; so, for example, critic and writer H.R.F. Keating introduces his selection of the "ten founding fathers" of the genre, among whom he cites Edgar Allen Poe, of course Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins, and provides a necessary explaining their contribution to the development of crime and thriller fiction over the last century and more.
The book offers the reader top ten books in crime genres from Whodunnits to the Hardboiled fiction characterised by Raymond Chandler. No doubt every reader will want to make some amendments to the top 100.
Len Deighton's Game, Set & Match trilogy makes it into the top 100 at number 58 - 'a richly powerful mixture of action, authenticity and bleak betrayal' - while The Ipcress File enters the top 10 at number 9. Moody describes this as full of 'ironic humour about the day-to-day routine of office betrayal.'
Deighton's introduction
Deighton develops an analogy of what the ideal London club would contain - leather-buttoned chesterfields, no muzak, no regimental doorman, and a library stuffed with books - and draws comparisons with Hatchards on Piccadilly (sadly, no longer open), arguing that it's as close to a cosy London club for 'book maniacs' (as he describes himself too) as one will find. In welcoming the selections by members of the CWA, Deighton also notes that writers are a conservative bunch, and many of those picked are the classics, often famous as much for their films as for the books.
Sample text
'For those who want to wonder if the crime story is a crime novel - or if the crime novel is art - there is plenty here to fuel argument. There is something for everyone.'
Subject
This is very personal account from a US bomber aircrew member about his four-month journey back to freedom, after bailing out of his B-17 bomber aircraft over Holland in 1943. This well-researched - and clearly, privately published - book draws on research by local historians in Europe to re-trace Horner's journey through Europe, aided by resistance fighters in Holland, France and Spain, from where he was finally exfiltrated. This was a previously classified story of rescue and tells a very human story of survival
Deighton's introduction
Given Deighton's interests in Second World War aviation and technology, and having written and researched Bomber, it is perhaps not surprising that he was happy to provide a short foreword to Horner's book, given the shared interest in storytelling this type of heroism. He writes about the "cavalry charges" of German fighters that US bomber crews faced on German bombing raids during daylight, and highlights in particular the way the author draws out the daily life of occupied Europe.
Sample text
'Among the images that remain of that terrible war, none seize the senses in as tight a grips as do the great formation of bombing planes that blackened the skies as the American air fleets invaded German airspace in daylight.'
Subject
This is a thoroughly researched and well-presented exposition of Bomber Command during the war and beyond. It's not simply a history; rather, it's a broader analysis of how the organisation and its flyers and technologies have been represented, both during wartime and subsequently. One particularly interesting aspect of the book is its examination of how Bomber Command was represented in literary and movie fiction. Naturally, Len Deighton's 1970 novel Bomber, which focuses on the crew of a fictional Lancaster bomber on a raid over Germany, is covered by Falconer.
Deighton's introduction
Deighton providing a foreword to this book seemed an obvious choice and he was, by all account, very pleased to be approached by Falconer to do so, noting that he wished something akin to this book had been available in the late 'sixties when he began work on his classic novel. Deighton references his frequent focus on hard and reliable research as essential to the success of his writing and his fastidious approach to getting details right, not just in his novel but in the later radio adaptation of it by the BBC.
This fastidious approach is referenced when Len writes about his desire to include the Junkers Ju 88 night fighters in the novel, a plane which was more difficult to research than he expected. However, he recounts how, with thanks to the historians at the Imperial War Museum, he was given access to a box of unmarked and uncatalogued German 16-mm training films, from which he was able to learn as much as he needed to about the plane. In return, all he was asked to do was catalogue what was on each reel.
Deighton's foreword necessarily also touches on some of the controversies surrounding the portrayal of Bomber Command in the media and in fiction, and concludes that the history of Bomber command and its exploits over Germany is something on which few historians will totally agree.
Sample text
'Every day, at the crack of dawn, I was at the door of the museum impatient to get to the editing bench. Eventually I found boxes filled with Luftwaffe aircrew training films concerning the Ju 88. By the time I had been through it all I felt qualified to build a Junkers Ju 88, let alone fly one, land one, extinguish fires on one, or escape from one by parachute. Later, the RAF let me climb around inside a Junkers Ju 88 that they discovered in a storage hangar.'
Subject
This is a book about warfare, and the experiences of the men on the front line, on the ground, in the air and at sea. The focus is on the squaddies and the NCOs, rather than the famous generals often covered in military histories.
Deighton's foreword
As a writer of military histories, Deighton's introduction demonstrates he was animated in reading and writing about this volume.
There are parallels between the stories told in this book and the fictional accounts of soldiery Deighton presented in Declarations of War.
He proceeds to cover some of the themes addressed in the text, such as the role of women in warfare, which at that point hadn't really been a subject for much research.
Sample text
'The German Army seemed made up of men who mostly had put aside the prospect of being a civilian again. Letters home revealed love, affection, and even home sickness, but the German soldier was not anxious to get home in the desperate way that we see in the British and American armies.'
Subject
The book itself - full title 'Destroyer: An anthology of first-hand accounts of the war at sea 1939-1945' - is a collection of personal tales of the war at sea by sailors of all types, as well as other bits of historical evidence and some interesting B&W photographs.
The editor does also reproduce a section from Deighton's Blood, Tears & Folly, in which Deighton writes about North Sea convoys in 1941 making the perilous journey to Iceland.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton’s foreword is short - one page - but he clearly sees a kinship between the author’s research and his own historical writings, because he too focuses on the stories of the man at the front line.
Sample text
'Surely no one will read this book without being deeply moved and inspired by the ungrudging sacrifice and all-pervading cheerfulness of its protagonists. Some were professional sailors, some were peacetime naval men but most of them were civilians who never truly adapted to a cold, wet, cramped life in a bouncing tin can but did their duty nevertheless. If you want to know what that generation of matchless heroes were like, Ian's book will show you.'
Subject
Len Deighton had a clear personal reason for providing this introduction: Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema was a close relative of his Dutch wife, Ysabele, and also a noted war hero for the Dutch. In the Second World War Erik Hazelhoff was a Dutch freedom fighter and MI-6 agent. He is famous for leading a raid on a Nazi headquarters on the coast of occupied Holland in which he wore a dinner suit under a wet suit and was able to transition from beach landing to intelligence gathering in a mission which was said to have influenced a similar scene in one of the Bond films. Later Hazelhoff was a hero in the air as a pilot for the RAF's elite Pathfinder Mosquito squadron. After the war he was vice-president of NBC in New York. He is a Dutchman who led an extraordinary life, such that in 1977 Paul Verhoeven made a film - Soldier of Orange - based on his life; and in recent years a successful stage show and musical based on these wartime escapades has been running in the Netherlands.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton’s foreword is very short - just one page - but he clearly had a strong connection with the author, both through his family and his interest in wartime espionage and military history, both of which he had discussed many times at family events with the author. He clearly admired Hazelhoff, highlighting the many successful lives he has lived in one lifetime, and noting that very little stopped him.
Sample text
'Nothing stops him, whether it's a ticking bureaucrat or a ticking time-bomb. Erik the amateur pilot flying countless missions over wartime Germany or the short-sighted applicant surviving countless physical examinations to join the RAF's most élite Pathfinder Force. Equally gripping is Erik's postwar encounter with an American employment agency, and his misadventures in the jungles of Hollywood. But he always emerges apparently unscathed.'
Subject
This is a limited edition of 100 books produced by Scorpion Press to recognise the contribution of Jack Higgins to thriller fiction. Dark Justice is a thriller led by Higgins' character Sean Dillon, and involves a failed Presidential assassination and the consequences thereof.
Deighton's introduction
The introduction is described as an appreciation, and it is very much that, a personal viewpoint of Jack Higgins by his fellow thriller author. Only two sides, the appreciation touches upon the importance of good dialogue in fiction to ensure the reader is absorbed into the story and believes the characters he or she is reading about. Interestingly, as a friend, Deighton addresses his appreciation to 'Harry', that is, Harry Patterson, whose pen name is Jack Higgins. It's clear that Deighton has some admiration for the author.
Sample text
'There is an undefined quality given by writers whose varied experience has shown them both the better and worse aspects of our world. Harry has studied history and taught it. He has served in the Household Brigade and watched history being made. All of this is evident in his writing. His deep interest in the still-unwinding history of World War Two is apparent in many of his books.'
Subject
This is part of a limited edition of 250 books produced by Scorpion Press to recognise the contribution to fiction of Dick Francis and Lionel Davidson, with contributions from other writers and literary critics and including a full bibliography for each author.
Deighton's foreword
Much of what Deighton writes about focuses on why doctors often make good thriller writers. He points to the fact that they have to understand the basic human framework; they often come across an unending supply of human dramas in their work. They are also dedicated note takers, he writes, with powers of observation and deduction, such as those possessed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
His more general point is that the fiction writer must know what he writes about: both Francis and Davidson have huge and varied experiences which they bring to their fiction, and also both drew upon their time in the armed forces, which provides a mixture of comradeship, futility, tyranny and destruction. He writes it is a privilege and delight to be part of this tribute to the two writers.
Sample text
'Fiction writers subsist on information. They don't have to be wise, or clever or even highly intelligent, which is just as well since few of us are. And yet writers need something more; vital things. They need to be creators, and not mere reporters. Writers need to write dialogue that we wished we had said or heard, rather than the banalities that the tape recorder reveals.'
Subject
The foreword here represents one of the most recent pieces of writing from Deighton, who is now effectively in semi-retirement. This book by Robert Sellers - which the Bond Producers Eon tried to get banned in 2008 - is about the on-screen incarnation of James Bond, which the author argues was substantially the creation of Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory and not Ian Fleming (who just wrote the books on which the film character is based). It's a tale of bitter recriminations and lawsuits. Deighton went into more detail about his personal involvement in this saga in his most recent published work, the e-book James Bond: My Long and Eventful Search for His Father.
The 2nd edition of Battle for Bond has the Len Deighton foreword; the first edition had a Raymond Benson introduction, but was withdrawn due to breach of copyright issues with the Fleming Estate. So the second edition is the first legal issue.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton was involved in writing a script for a long-lost potential Bond movie with McClory, called 'Warhead', and even went to New York to explore locations. In his foreword, Deighton compares the characters of Fleming - whom he met only once - and McClory, and concludes by saying: 'Anyone with a desire to go into the entertainment world should read this exciting, gripping but in the end melancholy story; it should be enough to change their mind forever.' Clearly, his thoughts in the foreword are informed by his exasperation in the sixties and the seventies with the film world, which led him to retreat back behind his typewriter keyboard. The manuscript for Warhead recently sold at auction for £42,000.
Sample text
'Ian [Fleming] was always clean shaven and his hair was always the right length: never too long, never too short. Kevin's hair was long, white, windswept an wispy. Yet, when I heard someone ask him if it was true that he often flew from his Bahama home solely to have his hair cut in New York, he didn't deny it. It was a very special barber, said Kevin. "So why not fly the barber to the Bahamas?" I asked. Kevin smiled the mirthless smile with which he responded to direct questions. While Ian knew what he wanted, said it and usually did it, Kevin dithered and changed his mind so that people working for him were baffled and frustrated.'
Subject
The submarine HMS Thetis sank on 1 June 1939 during diving trials, in what was at the time the worst peacetime submarine disaster that the Royal Navy had suffered. 99 men drowned or suffocated in the accident off Liverpool. The crucial story is that the men did not die instantly, but were trapped in the sub for many hours, while rescuers first searched for it and then, when it was located, tried to raise it from the water. In the end, only four men could be rescued.
No-one was ever officially held accountable for the loss of life; this book tells this story for the first time in detail.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton writes about what a shock the unfolding tragedy of the sinking was to the close-knit nation of Britain, and identifies that many people regarded Thetis as an unlucky ship - for example, in sea trials it was identified that her steering mechanism had been fitted in reverse. Many of its crew were not over enthusiastic about spending time on the least glamorous part of the Royal Navy.
The real issue with the Thetis he identifies is the attitude of the Admiralty over the loss and the secrecy surrounding it, exploring the theme in a lot of his own writing about the disdainful attitudes of the 'high-ups' to the men on the ground, or in this case under the sea. No doubt he chose to write this foreword as the subject matter appealed to his long-standing belief in the importance of the technological developments in changing the course of military history.
Sample text
'Warships of any shape or size are self-contained dictatorships. And self-contained dictatorships shroud their troubles in secrecy. It is not surprising that navies - such as those of Britain, France, Spain and Russia - have in recent times been the focus of mutinies and revolutions.'
Subject
This book looks at the growth of foreign - and especially Italian - cooking in the UK in the 1950s, centred in particularly around Soho in London.
The name in the title comes from the famous BBC Panorama programme of the 1950 in which a spoof report claimed that problems with the spaghetti 'harvest' in Italy would mean a shortage of the pasta in Britain. The author explores how two restaurateurs - Mario Cassandro and Franco Lagattolla, owners of La Trattoria Terrazza in Soho - were the architects of the modern cuisine experience in London and the centre of an expanding cultural universe in London in the sixties.
Len Deighton was at the centre of this world in the sixties, as a gourmand and cookery writer and of course a famous writer he was one of the many celebrities who dined in style in the new, swanky Italian eateries. The 'Trat scene' has become a part of sixties folklore.
Famously, in The Ipcress File, Deighton gave Terrazza a plug through the Harry Palmer character, who says: "In London with a beautiful girl, one must show her to Mario at the Terrazza."
Mario Cassandro died in June 2011.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton recounts how he became well acquainted with Soho through his time at St Martin's College of Art there, where he worked as a waiter during his student years. Coming back through Soho in the early morning after work, he'd get to know the restaurateurs and the shopkeepers of the area. Deighton ended up knowing many of the big name owners and chefs, and recounts some of the tales of what swinging Soho was like in the sixties over three pages.
Sample text
'In the sixties Hollywood came to London. Show-biz correspondents, notably Peter Evans, brought top American film stars to La Terrazza. With the instinct that made them a world-wide success, Mario and Franco didn't put their stars on display but tucked them away in the inaccessible Positano Room. It was a canny move. Even when the Positano Room held only wannabes like me, the buzz said that Frank and Liz were downstairs and Cecil Beaton had been stopped at the door for carrying a concealed camera.'
Subject
This historical biography looks at the lives of John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, the English pioneers of aviation and the first fliers to fly non-stop across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland, in June 1919. It is an entertaining story of courage and flying skill as the two pilots survive continuous cloud, freezing temperatures, snow and ice and a damaged exhaust on their Vickers Vimy plane. They cover the 1,880 miles in 16 hours, landing in Derrgimla in Ireland.
Recently, the author has been trying to raise funding to get the story turned into a feature film.
Deighton's foreword
The history of aviation and plane technology is a long-standing area of interest for Deighton. He starts by making the point that often it is warfare that is the spark for innovation and forward leaps in human experiences, and this was certainly the case with the aeroplane. Alcock and Brown's plane had been a strategic bomber in the First World War, its water-cooled engine being the best available set up at the time of the flight.
Deighton writes how the Rolls-Royce Eagle engines were an improvement upon an original Mercedes design which was eventually used on many types of aircraft (Deighton is, currently, working on a history of the aero engine so is clearly in his element here). As well as the technology, Deighton acknowledges that both men had very different personality, but worked extremely well together as a team in arduous circumstances.
Sample text
'In these days of ruthless competition it is satisfying to record that Alcock and Brown were attractive and modest heroes who became close friends. They generously insisted that part of their monetary prize was distributed among the Vickers support staff.'
Subject
Like a number of other collected editions to which Deighton has contributed, Motives for Murder brings together a collection of short stories from the cream of British detective and thriller fiction, all of whom are members of the famous Detection Club of writers, founded in 1930 as a way for crime writers to socialist and compare notes. This collection from its current members has short stories set in England, Dubai and Iceland, all of which offer classic crime fiction tropes. This edition celebrates the 80th birthday or author Peter Lovesey.
Deighton's foreword
Deighton's foreword is five pages, and positively welcomes the contribution made by the members of the club to the crime and thriller fiction genre. In it, he explores why writers like himself write. For some, it came naturally; for others, only after much trying or later in life. He also explores examples from his own life as a writer sharing how Albert Speer once complained to him that his autobiography was kept off the top of the bestsellers chart by a book about good sex techniques!
Sample text
'I am a very slow worker and so I have to work every day and am awake in the night to scribble notes. My books usually take me more than twelve months of continuous work to write. I envy writers who produce books at a lightning speed but have found that the more time I spend, writing, checking, rewriting, dumping unsatisfactory chapters and sometimes, as with SS-GB, scrapping the completed typescript and beginning again, the better the final result.'
Like Ian Fleming, John Le Carré, Eric Ambler and other contemporary writers of popular thriller and spy fiction, Len Deighton has been written about a lot. Such is the lot of the popular author, to have his works analysed, referenced, dissected, pored over, considered, judged and then further discussed.
This is a natural result of being one of the biggest selling English language authors of the last fifty years. Readers, other writers and academics want to understand where the stories come from, how the books were written, what the author's inspirations were.
This section contains details of a range of books which are either directly about Len Deighton and his canon, or have a significant part of the text devoted to analysis and dissection of Deighton's written works. His friend, and putative biographer, Edward Milward-Oliver's two reference books - The Annotated Bibliography and The Len Deighton Companion - are two excellent reference works which any reader or collector interested in Deighton should also.
Also referenced here are more academic works which consider Deighton's literary contribution to the genre and make textual comparisons with other major works of spy fiction, in the hope of eliciting new understanding.
The books in this section will help deepen your understanding of Deighton's contribution to popular thriller and spy fiction.
Summary
This is the first and only published comprehensive review of Len Deighton's works (at least up to its publication date of 1985) and is a treasure trove of details about each edition of each book, from the familiar to the unfamiliar and the obscure (which are covered in this website along with other books which were published after this book came out).
Each section provides details on publishing date, publishers, hard- and paperback editions, US edition, and all the useful information a collector requires. The collector's edition of this volume comes complete with an uncorrected page proof from London Match, signed by Len Deighton on 7 August 1985.
Why it's interesting
What makes the book worthwhile is that it contains a 4,000 word interview with Len Deighton, conducted by the author in Berlin in the shadow of the Wall. Len Deighton rarely gives interviews, so at the time it offered readers some new perspectives on his writing. For example, his novel Only When I Larf was adapted from notes and descriptions he made in preparation for a planned non-fiction book on confidence tricksters through the ages.
Sample text
On his expectations of The Ipcress File, Deighton says:
"I was very lucky, and because it was a big success, all of a sudden my income was dramatically different. But the irony is that as an illustrator I was making the sort of money that a fairly successful writer makes. So if Ipcress had been only a moderate, even warm success, I'm not sure what I would have decided."
Related fact
In the chapter on Bomber, Milward-Oliver records that in 1973 Len Deighton was awarded un diplome by the Commission d'Histoire, Arts et Lettres, de l'Aero-Club de France, the world's foremost and oldest aviation authority. This is one of the few awards Deighton has ever accepted, presumably because of its military connection.
Summary
This is a companion volume to Len Deighton: An Annotated Bibliography, also by Edward Milward-Oliver.
The book is many things: a key to the abbreviations Deighton's used; a chronology of all his first editions; a guide to the everything contained in his books from locations, characters, background facts, weaponry. It is quite simply a cornucopia of facts which builds on the content of the first book and sketch out a picture of the worlds created by Deighton. It contains a quiz on which the reader can test him or herself about Deighton's work.
Why it's interesting
This is a book for the avid reader to remind him or herself of characters they remember, to understand the facts behind the fiction, and to better immerse oneself in the unforgettable world created by Deighton's characters.
Sample text
'prisons. The narrator escapes from a Hungarian one in The Ipcress File - to discover suburban London is just over the wall (a moment vividly realised in the film). Prison life is recalled by Ferdy Thomas in Horse Under Water and Bob Appleyard in Only When I Larf, is endured by Charles Bonnard in Yesterday's Spy to win the confidence of Steve Champion, and survived by Lottie Winter in Nazi Berlin in Winter. The most dramatic prison setting is certainly the Tower of London, used by the Germans to hold King George VI following the Nazi occupation of Britain in SS-GB.'
Related fact
Deighton writes of Edward Milward-Oliver in the publicity blurb on the cover: 'Whenever I need to know something about my books, I call him. His detailed knowledge is extraordinary.'
Edward Milward-Oliver is not a professional writer. He is a retired director of a firm developing regional satellite systems.
Summary
Argosy was a monthly publication of short stories and articles, similar to Reader's Digest. In the July 1969 edition it carried an eight page profile of Len Deighton, an author who by that time had already published five novels and was regarded as one of the top spy and thriller writers of the time in the UK.
Why it's interesting
This is one of the first lengthy profiles of the author who, though successful, was not at the time heavily profiled in the media, as he preferred to let his books do the talking. Grosvenor writes up her interview with Deighton in a profile format, with the heading Up in the Ops Room Len Deighton talks by Telex and plans another blockbuster. Her articles explores with Deighton his process of writing, his predilection for using index cards to ensure that his books are accurate and well constructed, following his belief that books stand or fall by their construction, and not necessarily their plot. Having previously written all his books in the first person, here he talks to Grosvenor about his decision, with An Expensive Place to Die, to switch to the third person. He also talks about his preparations for Bomber, the first book written on a PC (the IBM MT/ST).
Sample text
[On Bomber] '"It will be the longest book I have ever written," says Deighton. "Already I am up to 80,000 words and I am only three-quarters of the way through.
"I like to call it a historical novel. Nothing at all to do with spies. It is a very self-indulgent sort of book and I am having great fun doing it."
This book, too, has been designed to a system. Not the card index one this time because, he says, "I am always looking for a new way, seeking the Holy Grail of right construction."
This system is rather more elaborate. He has reconstructed the bombing raid in his own Operations Room (on the first floor about the office-sitting room) from which Lancaster bombers are being lined up for the raid on Krefeld, near Düsseldorf.'
Summary
This is a comprehensive overview of international spy fiction written towards the end of the golden age of spy fiction. Edited by Donal McCormick, a former Sunday Times journalist, it does what the title suggests. In alphabetical order it provides biographical details on all the great names, and some lesser known individuals, who together have contributed to the development of the spy fiction genre. Ian Fleming naturally gets one of the longest entries, as does John Le Carré. Len Deighton's entry is five sides.
Why it's interesting
Until an official biography is published of the author, short potted biographies such as that found in this book are all that readers must make do with to understand more about the author and the development of his works. Though this book has little original research in it, it does come up with some interesting suggests of information about the author. For example, it recounts the tale of Deighton choosing to write The Ipcress File on the remote Isle de Pourquelles near Toulon, where the last ferry left early evening, where he could have no distractions in order to finish his first, successful novel. McCormick also highlights how Deighton's first few books, though successful, were not universally liked, with some critics criticising Deighton's taste for gimmickry and technical detail.
Sample text
'For some he [Deighton] needed to be re-read in order to be understood, for he wallowed in obscurity and ambiguity. He managed to get away with it. People began to warm to the Deighton cult, enjoying coping with the obscurities and built-in puzzle sentences [of Horse Under Water] in the same way a crossword addict loves to tackle increasingly difficult problems. As Julian Symons aptly put it, 'There is something lyrical about his re-creation of the dangerous and transitory life of agents … Writing about this quality …. makes Deighton a kind of poet of the spy novel.''
Summary
Produced at the height of the 'golden age' of spy fiction, at the height of the Cold War, this book seeks to understand the success of the genre and how writers have developed this part of fiction over recent decades.
Why it's interesting
This is not simply a 'how to' book about writing thrillers, or a history of the espionage novel from year one. Rather, it's a quasi-literary criticism that draws out the themes, parallels and archetypes of the spy thriller genre in an academic, but nonetheless reasonably compelling manner. Merry explores the popular appeal of the genre, links to other types of classical story telling and the crucial role of the spy agent as protagonist.
In exploring these themes, Merry talks about and quotes from many of the greats in the genre, including, of course, Len Deighton. Written in 1977, much of his reference to Deighton's canon focuses on his first five novels, the 'unnamed spy' stories, beginning with The Ipcress File. For instance, he uses the example of the 'Harry Palmer' character to explore how authors present the agent's operating skills plausibly, and recounts that the CIA had bought copies of all of Deighton's books for their library in Langley, Virginia.
Sample text
'It has been observed that spy stories break down into two main plots: (a) sending an agent to plant something (a person, money, information) in a foreign country; and (b) sending an agent to bring something out of a foreign country. Spy Story amalgamates both these scenarios in a series of classic manoeuvres. The agent, Patrick Armstrong, is an ex-Intelligence operative seconded to a secret War Games study centre in London. The War Games material (submarine deployment, fleet concentrations, missile vulnerability) is a microcosm of the political activity in the main plot. Four competing agencies have a different stake in the plan to bring the Russian Rear-Admiral Remoziva from a rendezvous on the Arctic ice by submarine to a remote Scottish island.'
Summary
This is an idiosyncratic little book which is actually a very informative overview of the books and authors which have defined British spy fiction. This narrative charts the unrivalled popularity of the spy novel genre, and notes that despite this popularity, the genre has not yet been subject to criticism and review by the academic community to which more 'serious' novels are readily submitted.
The author chooses seventeen novelists which he believes represent the British spy genre. For each he undertakes basic literary analysis and criticism, placing each novelist and their books in their historical perspective and then analysing the content and form of their output. Sixteen pages of the book are devoted to an analysis of Len Deighton's books; he describes the author as 'a writer devoted to giving his readers a realistic peep through the veil into the hidden world of spying and spies.'
Other authors critiqued in the book include The 39 Steps author John Buchan, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, Peter Cheyney, Manning Coles, John Le Carré and, naturally, Ian Fleming. The author is rather dismissive of the latter, attributing his success as much to the films as the quality of his writing: 'Ian Fleming [was] a minor writer who, himself, did little to advance the form. Fleming possessed only meagre talents as a maker of plots.'
Why it's interesting
It appears to be self-published or at the very least published in a very small quantity, so it has curiosity value. The author taught English at a small college in Maryland and his academic background is in literary criticism and English literature, and the content and style of the book reflects this, with his emphasis on identifying the linguistic and stylistic trends and evolution within the genre across the ninety years covered. He is reasonably complimentary about Deighton's writing, identifying him as advancing the genre in the sixties with his first four novels and representative of the 'Golden Age' of the spy novel.
Sample text
'He [Deighton] deals with serious, contemporary issues within the tested conventions of the detective novel and the spy story. He has interest in narrative craft, beyond simply repeating elements of the adventure story. His principal character is more than a stooge, and he grows to reflect the writer's own development. While Deighton still remains a spy novelist instead of simply a novelist, he brings a good deal of repute to the form.'
Summary
This book is a celebration of the genre and an accessible reference volume for the reader, written by a former chairman of the Detection Club, H.R.F. Keating, who was also a friend of Len Deighton's.
The chapter contributed by Deighton is entitled 'Even on Christmas Day,' in which he explores the intense process which goes into writing one of his books. He writes of endless reappraisals of each chapter he develops and the detailed research which goes into each book. For Bomber, he tells how it took three trips to Germany and numerous maps, charts, movies and interviews to ensure he got the accuracy of the bombing raids and their results absolutely correct.
The chapter is illustrated with one of Deighton's own hand-drawn research drawings, showing the details of the air base from which the bombers depart, and he has even done drawings of the goggles worn by the pilot, evidence of his unstinting focus on accuracy.
Why it's interesting
Fascinating opportunity to explore the process of how Deighton writes, and evidence of his commitment to his craft.
He takes the reader chronologically through his books, detailing how he grew as a writer and developed new research and writing techniques which contributed to improving him as a writer. There is a fascinating picture showing his notes about the technical details about flying goggles, one small detail in a much bigger story, but one he wanted to get right.
Sample text
'My own writing is characterised by an agonising reappraisal of everything I write so that I have to work seven days a week and usually do an hour or so even on Christmas Day, simply to keep all the problems fresh in my mind. The most difficult lesson to learn is that thousands and thousands of words must go into the waste paper basket. To soften the blow, I place scrapped chapters on a high shelf for a month before tossing them away.'
Related fact
Also contributing to this volume are spy novelist and friend of Deighton Eric Ambler, Patricia Highsmith and Reginald Hill.
Summary
Lars Ole Sauerberg, a lecturer in English literature at Odense University, takes a focused look at the structure and development of the spy novel genre by focusing on three of the giants - Ian Fleming, John Le Carré and Len Deighton - in a compare-and-contrast approach that seeks to find the common threads that mark them out as shaping the development of the novel in the second half of the twentieth century.
He demonstrates how Fleming's anachronistic patriotism after the war had to give way to the growing realisation of Britain's second-rank status in the Cold War, leading Fleming to turn to more fantasy enemy figures instead of the traditional Red fiend.
This realism in spy fiction is taken up by Deighton and, as Sauerberg shows, is demonstrated clearly in the working class spy character who would become Harry Palmer. The author believes the spy genre became a vehicle of traditional literary conventions and a framework which was well-suited for preserving the international tensions of the Cold War in an exciting and dramatic way.
Why it's interesting
It's a comprehensive analysis of the conventions of the genre. He looks at the relationship between the spy hero and his superiors, and the dramatic tensions created by this; he uses Deighton's spy characters to explore the issue of the problem of conscience for any spy, who in seeking to uphold the interests of his superiors is often forced into a moral grey world of violence and chicanery.
The differences between the three writers are well explored, and the writer does provide a fresh external perspective on their writings, and on how significantly the genre had changed in twenty years.
Sample text
'While the nameless hero of Deighton's stories retains a cool and detached attitude to the ethical problem of his occupation from The Ipcress File to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy, he shows a growing awareness of its existence. That professionalism means ethical callousness is obvious from The Ipcress File. Partly in the circumstance that the hero is forced to remain as ruthless as the other side if he wishes to remain alive, partly in his own ruthless - perhaps forcedly ruthless - comment on a mistake which costs the lives of a number of American agents: "Look, it was a mistake. There's nothing anyone could do. Just a mistake. What do they want me to do? Write to Jackie Kennedy and say I didn't mean it?"'
Summary
This book has two elements: a reference guide to major spy fiction thriller writers in the English language including a critical analysis by the authors, and a number of chapters offering deeper textual interpretations of key examples of the genre.
The writers tread familiar ground - and don't really add much new analysis in point of fact, despite the section title - but we do find out from reading the text some interesting US reactions to the unnamed spy novels.
Why it's interesting
The most interesting element is the focus on the Game, Set and Match series of books, which were contemporary with this book. The success of the series is put down to Deighton's sharp narratives filled with the smallest of details; the authors quote one US reviewer who correctly pointed out that Berlin Game had re-invigorated the spy genre, that it was 'a book to strip away the age-withered, custom-staled betrayals of all that quarter century of novels, perhaps even of history, and once again make painful, real, alive the meaning of treason.'
The bureaucratic in-fighting and laggardness intrinsic to the trilogy is, the author's conclude, not a laboured ingredient just added haphazardly to the plot. The sense of humour Deighton imbues the story with is, they argue, also important for a genre which does tend to take itself seriously.
Sample text
'Deighton's prose is elliptical. It needs to be sipped slowly to be appreciated, rather like Yellow Chartreuse.'
Summary
This papeback book looks at the development of the post-modem arts scene in Britain in the post-war period; more specifically, the unique generation of arts and design students at the Royal College of Arts in London (the RCA), among which were such future luminaries as Sir Peter Blake, David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and, of course, Len Deighton. Through textual analysis, photographs, interviews and extracts the author describes how this post-War generation sought to open the English 'box of beautiful things' - their critical name for the neo-Romantic, neo-Victorian tastes still prevalent within the RCA - and develop a new post-modem approach to art, which led directly to the pop-art movement of the sixties.
Why it's interesting
Deighton was at the RCA along with many people who subsequently went on to become luminaries in arts and design. He, though no longer an artist, is still regarded as one of the RCA's famous alumni and provides the pull-quote on the back of the book: "An exceptionally fine book that I can recommend to anyone interested in the ups and downs of British artists and designers in the postwar period." In the book there are numerous references to Deighton, including stories about his relationship with friend Brian Duffy (with whom he went on to produce Only When I Larf.
Sample text
'The intimate knowledge of Soho, for which Deighton would become nationally famous during the 1960s, originated during his student days at St Martin's [college] and his connection with the West End world of advertising agencies and commercial photographers, which sprang directly from personal contacts and practical experience gained during his National Service as a photographer with the RAF.'
Summary
Crime Time was a printed magazine which ran for 54 edition before reverting solely to being an online magazine devoted to crime fiction novels and the genre more widely, featuring reviews and author interviews. Issue 38 puts Len Deighton on the front cover, in the illustrious company of John Le Carré, and writer Steve Holland provides an eight-page review of his career and books.
Why it's interesting
Crime Time describes itself as the journal of crime fiction and it's clear from the magazine that it's a publication written by and targeted at readers and fans of this genre which covers a huge range of books and authors. Steve Holland writes his profile of "an unjustly neglected master" and he does a pretty good job of covering the key stages of Len's career and the scope of his fiction output.
He looks at Len's work through the eye of the crime fiction genre, considering stories like Horse Under Water and Billion Dollar Brain as having clear elements of crime fiction running throughout them.
This is very much a 'cut and paste' view of Len and his works - plenty of oft-repeated stories and quotes are used by Steve Holland, such as the story of Len meeting future agent Jonathan Clowes leading to The Ipcress File being published.
Other tropes are covered: the unnamed spy as 'working class' agent; the design of the cover; the elaborate nature of Deighton's plots. Interesting, the article really only covers his early output, when in fact stories like Close-Up and Violent Ward would arguably be of interest to a crime fiction audience.
Sample text
'Raymond Chandler once claimed that the hardboiled school of writers gave murder back to those who committed it. Len Deighton, along with Le Carré and others who followed, gave the shadowy spy world a new breed of protagonists; the clean-cut 'for King and country' attitudes of earlier spy novels were blurred, loyalties were ambiguous, ideals were less tangible and Deighton, his writing oblique yet full of vivid images, revelled in this grey new world.'
Summary
Part of the Praeger Television Collection of books, Wesley Britton - and English Language professor in the USA - looks at the development of spy fiction stories on television in the US and globally too. Starting in the early 1960s, Britton looks at how spies have been portrayed on television and how the gadgets and action provided escapism from the outside world, particularly during the Cold War. TV spies were new types of heroes, he writes, and have been portrayed as camp, glamorous, reflective, sexy and dour.
In this book he covers the obviously famous series and characters, such as TV's The Saint, Men from U.N.C.L.E and Reilly, Ace of Spies, as well as some of the more obscure TV spies now consigned to history. Britton highlights how spy fiction on TV has often blurred fact and fiction in the minds of the public.
Why it's interesting
For a Deighton reader the most interesting parts of this book relate to how Britton puts the 1988 TV series Game, Set and Match into context alongside other major spy series. However, he gives as much attention to the made-for-TV re-treads of the Harry Palmer series, Midnight in St Petersburg and Bullet to Beijing.
Sample text
'The changing roles of secret agents and the growing importance of cable channels were also evident in two further Harry Palmer films, Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in St Petersburg (1995). Although it is uncertain how much Deighton was involved in these project [Ed - in reality, very little beyond approving it], the films, ostensibly made-for-TV projects, were first seen in America in 1997 on the American Movie Channel and later on the Mystery Channel. However, they were in fact productions first aimed at theatrical release and were seen in Canadian and Russian cinemas in 1995. But Disney Production felt Harry Palmer couldn't compete against the new James Bond epic Goldeneye, the new Mission:Impossible and the new Saint starring Val Kilmer.
Summary
The Penguin Collectors Society is the pre-eminent authority for those who read and collect the iconic Penguin paperback editions of some of the world's greatest books. The cover itself is an homage to the well-known orange banded covers for Penguin books. Len Deighton produced a number of illustrations for Penguin when he worked as an illustrator. This book is packed full of beautiful colour images of covers and the designs and paintings behind them, showing the full dynamic range of illustrations that have featured on the covers. The text explores the history of the imprint and the efforts of its editors and designers to create a distinctive brand which has, clearly, stood the test of time.
Why it's interesting
For a Deighton reader the most interesting parts of this book relate to discussions of the covers he made for Penguin in the 'fifties and 'sixties. Deighton is listed as one of the contributors and over two pages he provides background to his work for the company and, subsequently, his emergence as a Penguin author. His work for Penguin came at a time when he was a young designer in Soho, who got a reputation for being able to turn around design work - pre-Internet, of course - in record time. The section has beautiful colour images of his covers for The Disenchanted, Tender is the Night, Under the Net and Hurry on Down.
Sample text
Len Deighton: 'The colour bands went from horizontal to vertical to make more room for cover drawings, many of which were hurriedly produced and not good enough. While money and time were lavished upon typographic perfection the artist was the last in line when it came to fees.'
Summary
This is the first extensive scholarly attempt to look at the history of word processing. Crucially, it's not a book about computers, but rather about how - like the quill pen and the printing press before it - technology has shaped how writers write and how readers consume their works. It is a comprehensive text covering the earliest forms of computing on tape-to-tape reels, through the first PCs right up to the development of the Microsoft Word processing software we're all familiar with.
Why it's interesting
A chapter, and parts of other chapters - plus a number of images - is devoted to the claim by Kirschenbaum - for which he offers up extensive, first-hand evidence - that Bomber, by Len Deighton, was the first novel truly written and developed using a word processor. The machine in question was the IBM MT/ST machine which was not like any word processor today - the text entered was stored on tape, rather than disc, but done so in such as way that, for the first time, a text could be properly stored, manipulated, changed and re-published. The machine filled Deighton's study - and the book includes an excellent photograph of the huge machine - and was, Kirschenbaum reveals, 'worked' by Deighton's assistant Eleanor Handley, who in reality was the first 'author' to write a novel using this system, though of course she was transcribing Deighton's words.
Sample text
'After this MT/ST was delivered and installed in the dramatic fashion described [the windows of his flat had to be removed], Deighton would continue his custom of writing while standing at an upright Electric, fed by a long roll of telex paper, It was Ellenor Handley who set about the task of mastering the new acquisition, just like thousands of secretaries before her in more conventional office settings. There were several false starts and mechanical issues to sort out (the machine could be temperamental) but soon enough it was integrated into the workflow for Bomber. Deighton's drafting was characterised by a careful system for producing typescript on paper of different colours, corresponding to the different narrative points of view exhibited in the book. This allowed him easy access to individual segments and also the ability to take in, literally at a glance, the balance and distribution of opposing perspectives as the stack of manuscript pages grew.'
Biography
In his own words
According to others
Journalism
Did you know?
Interviews
Understanding Deighton's writing
Deighton at 90
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