Len Deighton (February 18, 1929 – March 15, 2026)

ALL CLICKABLE LINKS IN RED

Len Deighton was, is and will be my all-time favorite / greatest author . Period.  I can explain elaborately till the end of the world but suffices to say that his sharp, insightful writing with not a single wasted word is what appeals to the writer in me. And let us not forget the sardonic wit . Two examples from his Bernard Samson series should suffice here

From the first Bernard Samson book, Berlin Game (1983):

Bernard : London wants you to stay in place. London wants more.

Brahms Four ( an East German agent): London is like Oliver Twist. London always wants more.

 
From the fourth Bernard Samson Spy Hook (1988):

Man : Notice Bernard. The victim switched on an electric razor which contained a few grams of plastic explosive. The circuit got completed and then the plastic blew his head off. Now what does that tell you ?

 Bernard: I will stick to soap and water (for shaving).

 

The humor is also personal.  In a 1983  interview when Berlin Game was published,  he joked to the TV interviewer thus:

Interviewer :  You always have a chip on your shoulder about your working-class  origins, that shows up in your books.

Len Deighton:  Yes. I always said that I grew up in a house with 15 servants ; it is just that my father was one of the servants!

 

Strangely the first book that I ever read was ‘Bomber’ (1970), about a British bomber raid on a German town in June 31, 1943. (get it?). The book gave an equal view of the preparation on both the British AND the German side and how it seems like fingers of two gigantic invisible forces are meeting over the night time German skies. Filled with incredible detailed research (such as an 88 mm flak shell exploding into a 1123 pieces), as the novel progressed, the reader soon gets alarmed that the town Altgarten that is preparing for an air raid, IS NOT THE ACTUAL TARGET; the reader knows it but neither the bomber crew nor the German town know it.  The book concludes with an incredible line by a photo interpreter. ” The attack hasn’t hit Krefeld, sir, I’ve just been studying the negs. Street patterns are nothing like it. I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t look like anywhere. It doesn’t look like anywhere”.

The book is available as a four part BBC radioplay on You Tube. The first part’s link is given below. Do check out the subsequent part 2,3,4

https://youtu.be/F6U0e5DUdNQ

After Bomber, I went back to his early 1960 books and was simply blown away . Soon he became my favorite writer and then my all time favorite over the years.

Even in the most dangerous moments in many of his novels, the wit and sarcasm were evident . Deighton has acknowledged that this is due to his working-class origins and having a chip on his shoulder against the “OxBridge educated types”. This shows up in some of his best books but most notably in the 9-part Bernard Samson spy series.

Samson is a field agent whose boss is Dicky Cruyer. Samson’s view of Cruyer is of a sycophant and a chamcha,  who gets all the hard work done by Samson, and then takes credit for Samson’s ideas as his own ideas. We all surely have a Cruyer in our life and this is an incisive character study , where Cruyer spends more time sampling the fine life, having multiple affairs and , in Samson’s views, generally being an idiot. I usually read the series in order every year or two as it is a fantastic study of Corporate Politics disguised as a spy story, though I am sure that Deighton had no such lofty ideas when he wrote the series. (Hint to readers  – how many Cruyers do you know professionally and personally?) .

Deighton was called the “Poet of the Spy Novel” and rightly so. With few words, he established deep characterizations that stuck with us, long after we had finished the book. From 1962 till 1996, he wrote 28 (mostly spy) novels including a collection of fictional war stories (Declarations of War), 2 cookbooks, 1 book on 1960s London titled London Dossier, 5 brilliant histories of the Second World War including the classic Blood Tears and Folly (1993) which clearly mentioned that not a single leader – Allied or Axis – served their country well. This obviously ruffled the feathers of the Churchill and Roosevelt fans, but his book proved otherwise, with well-established historians like AJP Taylor and Max Hastings saying that the interpretations were accurate and was  high time to recognize that not all  leaders were geniuses.

Deighton repeatedly claimed that he did not consciously write his first book , The Ipcress File, as an ‘anti-Bond’ book but critics took the book as a device to beat the Bond films and series as they claimed, rightly, that this book was more realistic compared to the ‘shaken and not stirred’ Bond world. The full Deighton Bibliography is available at this Wikipedia link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Deighton_bibliography

With such a ‘cool’ central character, it was inevitable that Deighton’s unnamed hero would make it to the screen. So let us look at all the books and films that made it to the screen , big or small, based on Deighton’s books or inspired by his characters:

Book 1 . The Ipcress File (1962).

Film: Was filmed in 1965 with Michael Caine playing the unnamed hero, who was named Harry Palmer in the film. Some elements of the brainwashing plot were kept intact while other elements of American nuclear secrets were removed from the film. It did not in any way lessen the eerie feeling of a topsy turvy world of spying, enhanced by the angular camera work – many shots are at odd angles and not straight frames. Caine’s ‘cool’ reputation was made forever and Deighton even said later that only Caine could have made the unnamed hero, his own. They remained close friends and Caine shares his views about him in the documentary The Truth about Len Deighton (Links below). The Ipcress File (1965) is available on Amazon US and unfortunately not on Amazon India.

TV series : The 2022 TV series was more faithful to the book and included the American nuclear secrets scenario. In keeping with 21^st century sensibilities, Jean who only served as Palmer’s romantic interest in the film (and book), was shown to be an active agent . The brainwashing part was kept intact and was equally harrowing as the one in the film. The Ipcress File (2022 TV series) is available on Amazon US and not Amazon India.

Book 3 – Funeral in Berlin (1964)

The 1965 film was shot in the actual locations of then divided Berlin. The locations added to the overall moody atmosphere and we can get an idea as to why Berlin was called city of spies / playground of spies and similar labels. Caine again emerged as an example of 1960s cool. In stark contrast to James Bond driving an Aston Martin DB5, Palmer commuted to work in a red double decker bus and cooked all his meals. The wheels within wheels plot involves Russian KGB, former Nazis and neo Nazis, Israeli intelligence and the oh so cool Palmer. Funeral in Berlin (1964) is available on Amazon India for Rent.

Book 4 – The Billion Dollar Brain (1966)

This 1967 film, and was something of a cross between a Bond film and a Deighton story. The blame can be probably allotted to producer Harry Saltzman who was then co-producing the James Bond film (whose Thunderball co-produced with Cubby Broccoli, had just been released). The paranoid Texan billionaire soon became a Bond like megalomaniac with everyone in his organization wearing similar uniforms . When it was released, it had a very high-tech feel as Honeywell 200 mainframe computers were shown in use, with magnetic tapes and card readers as input devices. The Bond like feel is enhanced by Bond regular, Maurice Binder, designing the Bond like credit scenes ; take a look at this You Tube link and decided for yourself  https://youtu.be/eITCKZPHDiM

Today with more computing power available in a smartphone, the computers look very dated but it is still thrilling for its intricate plot of Texan megalomaniac crossed with bacteriological warfare and the Russians one step ahead with a double agent in the billionaire’s camp. Finland substitutes for some of the Russian scenes. Available on Amazon India for Rent.

Book 6 – Only When I larf (1967).

This is a break way from the spy world into the world of conmen. Three con artists , one an older man and a young couple , embark on a series of cons. Soon it is not clear who is conning whom and who will betray whom. This was made into 1968 film which was true to the book and is a rarity as it was not easily available, till recent years. Available on Amazon India for Rent.

Book 12 – Spy Story (1972).

This was a return to the spy story after writing two non-fiction books on London and the Continent, writing two cookbooks, and producing the anti-War classic musical film Oh What a Lovely War , for which he didnt take credit for some (self admitted stupid) reason.  Spy Story was classic Deighton ; wheels within wheels, told subtly . It was filmed for TV in 1978 and was long unavailable but a moderately clean print surfaced on You Tube a year ago

https://youtu.be/6uSP0oaQTTk?si=YOI7mEwPu5yPL4pk

Book 15 – SS-GB (1978).

This would be what is known as “Alternative History”.  One of the GREATEST WHAT-IFs of Second World War. What if Operation Sea Lion, the planned June 1940 German invasion of Britain had succeeded, with the Germans successfully landing and occupying Britain ? The story is set in 1941 and starts with an apparent murder into which a Scotland Yard detective is pulled in . He is a regular policeman, but must walk a tightrope between  his somewhat avuncular but cunning German superior while also balancing with the SS, who have taken an interest in the case. His junior sergeant who showed him the ropes and keeps a fatherly oversight, is clearly involved with the Resistance, as is his female assistant.

SS-GB made it to the small screen as a 5-part mini-series. The superb production design, the bleak atmosphere all proved realistic, giving a picture of a drab Britain , under enormous pressure from the Germans while the investigation proves that there is much more at stake, including the clandestine support of the Americans to the British Resistance forces, which is what the SS officer is interested in. Superb, atmospheric, and NOT to be missed. Available on Amazon India for Rent, Apple TV.

Berlin Game (1983), Mexico Set (1984), London Match (1985) – known as Game, Set and Match ; the first Bernard Samson trilogy.

Set against the Cold War backdrop and where Berlin figures repeatedly, the trilogy shows field agent Samson discovering in the first book Berlin Game, that his wife is a KGB Agent. All the time he thought of himself as a super-agent, here was his wife , quietly sharing secrets to the East Germans/ the KGB. By Set and Match, it had become a personal battle between him and her/ her KGB controllers as they go about their spy games of defection, counter defection, false defection and so on. He must also answer an enquiry commission and their continued suspicions that he was her controller. With his childhood Berliner German friend Werner Volkmann, Samson just about manages to outwit the opposition, while cursing his immediate boss Dicky Cruyer and generally viewing all his superiors as time serving idiots. (Didn’t I say it had AMAZING  parallels with Corporate Politics?) 

The Game Set and Match books made it to TV as a mini-series in 1988. Samson was described in the books as almost six feet with wavy hair and glass; ( I can only picture the 1980s Michael Caine in that role). In a spectacular piece of miscasting, the five foot five-inch Ian Holm, an otherwise superb actor, was miscast as the abrasive self-absorbed Samson and the series tanked . So much that Deighton forbade any more telecast of the series as he was thoroughly disappointed with the way it turned out , though it was  100% faithful to the Game, Set , Match books.  The series is not bad – just dull. Most of Deighton’s clever writing and inferences are missing/ get subdued by the great atmosphere as it was shot in then undivided Berlin. But then atmosphere alone cant make a film or a TV series. There was and still is enormous potential for the Hook, Line, Sinker and Faith, Hope, Charity trilogies but we do not know what were Deighton’s instructions on the same. The full 13 part TV series is available on You Tube as this playlist

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSpG6jj23Vgoy7WF1RlivWVCozM-kUeu8&si=OhBzfJOCYSp1rrXL

Post Cold War, there were two Harry Palmer ‘follow up’ films in the 1990s. The two films were ‘based on characters created by Len Deighton’. Michael Caine repeated his role of a much older Palmer, still a field agent, still laconic but as a victim of post-Cold war “downsizing”, he goes into the “Private Sector’ with predictably disastrous results as he is caught in multiple conspiracies. The stories were dull and tired as was Caine’s performance , though he claimed he enjoyed both films , as he was paid very well. The only curiosity about both Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight at St.Petersburg (1996) was that they were filmed in post-Cold War / ‘Yeltsin’ Russia and benefited from the actual Russian locations, unlike Cold War era films where either Finland or Austria substituted for Russia/ Moscow/Leningrad. Both films also had Jason Connery, Sean Connery’s son, as Palmer’s Russian contact. His bland performance also added to the overall dull proceedings, punctuated by the odd Russian location and events, such as Palmer traveling in a dangerously overcrowded Soviet era An30 transport plane. Both films are available on You Tube at below links (watch them for the Russian locales):

Bullet to Beijing

https://youtu.be/i13D_62IgSo?si=9Ralh6D5Bb-9tC6P

Midnight at St Petersburg

https://youtu.be/YZfZrbrgzZk?si=hTF6eQvhsxVAFtyH

Extremely private, Deighton rarely gave interviews . There are only two or three full length interviews which are now available on You Tube. From them, it is clear, that his personal sense of humor, has seeped into his writing too.

In the 1977 interview titled The Lively Arts, Deighton humorously shares about his life till then and how critics used his novels as a ‘blunt instrument’ to beat Bond films and novels.
https://youtu.be/0x2njOTj8eM?si=F9GLH_9CXKvM-tlm

In a much shorter (23 minute) 1983 interview for Thames TV, he explains the experiences that went into the writing of the Game, Set, Match series, including a visit to East Berlin and how East Germans behaved in the early 1980s, compared to the 1960s and 1970s.

https://youtu.be/XJun7546t_s?si=_UvPjoHQ3pLuj3Uu

There is also a one-hour 2005 documentary, The Truth about Len Deighton, split into four parts available as below:

Part 1 – https://youtu.be/5iwp7HXnHbM?si=FL7SnJQT24HCyUkF

Part 2 – https://youtu.be/X-EN4FRsZQ0?si=dqE-C8XyKYq3dRlO

Part 3 – https://youtu.be/LXhJQdkUaFM?si=xyJ_4IGb7eIyuzH8

Part 4 – https://youtu.be/KruSRV4ryAs?si=smsSM9tVuuU0ZZXZ

For those who would like it the conventional way (that is looking at websites) there is a SUPERB website that has everything to do with Len Deighton which is a treasure trove of information.

https://www.deightondossier.net/

Being the multi talented genius that he was , he had written:

• An early 1970s novel on the Vietnam Air war.
• A history of fountain pains.
• A history of aero engines.

These books remain unpublished and we can only hope that they would see the light of the day sometime in the future.

Len Deighton – Cooking Expert. Chronicler.  Historian. An extraordinary Writer. Your writing / books are forever.

K V Ramesh

March 19. 2026