Len Deighton

Len Deighton’s classic first novel, whose protagonist is a nameless spy – later christened Harry Palmer and made famous worldwide in the iconic 1960s film starring Michael Caine.The Ipcress File was not only Len Deighton’s first novel, it was his first bestseller and the book that broke the mould of thriller writing.For the working class narrator, an apparently straightforward mission to find a missing biochemist becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy.The film of The...

Three confidence tricksters – two blokes and a bird – had a style that earned them millions.Silas was the leader, slick and self-assured – but dissatisfied. Bob was the junior partner, longing for the open road where pickings were rich and the living was easy. And Liz, Silas’ mistress, was… in between. Theirs was a built-in love triangle with its own rewards… and its own dangers.In New York these con-artists do a ‘business deal’ worth millions. But back in London Silas’ plan to bilk an emergent...

A collection of thirteen stories that offer an inside view of fighting men poised at the edge of death.Len Deighton's only collection of shorter fiction, this dazzling array of stories spans twenty-three centuries of warfare.From Hannibal's march on Rome – when strange, moving objects terrorise the troops of one of the toughest and most skilful armies in history – to the efforts of a belittled Civil War general to get his men to face the Confederate army; to the dawn skies above an...

Deep in Marxist Guerilla territory a hopeless war is being fought.The Berlin Wall is demolished. Marx is dead. Try telling that to Ramon and his desperate men hiding in the jungle cradling their AK 47s, dusting off the slabs of Semtex and dreaming of world revolution.MAMista takes us to the dusty, violent capital of Spanish Guiana in South America, and thence into the depths of the rain forest; the heart of darkness itself. There, four people become caught up in a struggle both political and...

Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with the man who led the old anti-Nazi Guernica network. Time to reopen the master file on yesterday’s spy…Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with the man who led the old anti-Nazi Guernica network. Time to re-open the master file on yesterday’s spy…This new reissue includes a foreword from the cover designer, Oscar-winning filmmaker Arnold Schwartzman, and a brand new introduction by Len Deighton, which offers a fascinating...

An unnamed spy – perhaps the same reluctant hero of The Ipcress File – is sent to Paris to deliver a file of nuclear secrets to a French doctor, but soon finds himself sucked into a twilight world of sex, blackmail and hidden motive, where friend and enemy become indistinguishable.A ‘clinic’ on Paris’s Avenue Foch designed to cater lavishly for multiple perversions, staffed by a group of sexually and intellectually high-powered girls and equipped with devices ranging from an Iron Maiden to...

'I am going to cook you the best meal you have ever tasted in your life…' Harry Palmer to Sue Lloyd in ‘The Ipcress Files’'Len was a great cook, a smashing cook. I learned a lot about food from playing Harry Palmer' Michael CaineIf you look carefully at Harry Palmer's kitchen in the classic film ‘The Ipcress Files’ you will notice a newspaper pinned on the wall. This is one of Len Deighton's classic cookstrips, the series that ran for two years when he was the Observer food writer. Because...

A ferociously cool Cold War thriller from the author of The Ipcress File.Len Deighton’s third novel has become a classic, as compelling and suspenseful now as when it first exploded on to the bestseller lists.In Berlin, where neither side of the wall is safe, Colonel Stok of Red Army Security is prepared to sell an important Russian scientist to the West. British intelligence are willing to pay, providing their own top secret agent is in Berlin to act as go-between. But it soon becomes apparent...

Bernard Samson returns to Berlin in the first novel in the classic spy trilogy, FAITH, HOPE and CHARITYBernard has known that he is not getting the full picture from London Central ever since discovering that his wife Fiona was a double agent.Werner Volkmann has been cast out by London Central as untrustworthy. Yet Werner still seems able to pick up information that Bernard should have been told…This reissue includes a foreword from the cover designer, Oscar-winning filmmaker Arnold Schwartzman,...

January 1942. Rommel’s seemingly invincible Afrika Korps is at the gates of Egypt – perhaps soon to threaten Cairo itself.Rommel has a spy in the city – a source so well-informed that the German commander knows in advance every movement of the allied forces.Amongst the teeming streets and bazaars, the British, led by Major Albert Cutler, must find him. But Cairo is a city of fool’s gold, where nothing and nobody, not even Cutler, can be taken at face value…This new reissue includes a foreword...

In Goodbye Mickey Mouse Len Deighton has written his best novel yet: a brilliant, multi-dimensional picture of what it is to be at war… and what it was to be in love in the England of 1944.Goodbye Mickey Mouse is Deighton’s fourteenth novel and a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4.At the centre of the novel are two young men: the deeply reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother, estranged son of...

The legendary, incendiary novel of the film industry back in print after 20 years. A Hollywood Babylon for our timeMarshall Stone, international superstar and charismatic member of Hollywood's elite. Abundantly blessed with charm, genius and wealth, the one gift he most desires – everlasting youth – seems within his grasp when an eminent writer begins the star's biography. But painful memories and suppressed scandals threaten to expose the fiction of his life.Dazzled by flattery and numbed by...