Secret File

Series · 7 books · 1962-1976

By Len Deighton

Books in series

The Ipcress File

1962

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 Ipcress File gave Michael Caine one of his first and still most celebrated starring roles, while the novel itself has become a classic.

Horse Under Water

1962

The Ipcress File was a debut sensation. Here; in the second Secret File, Horse Under Water; skin diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which a dead and long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today's Europe.

Funeral in Berlin

1964

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 - for a price. 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 that behind the facade of an elaborate mock funeral lies a game of deadly manoeuvres and ruthless tactics. A game in which the blood-stained legacy of Nazi Germany is enmeshed in the intricate moves of cold war espionage

Billion Dollar Brain

1966

The classic spy thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniac’s private cold war, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File.The fourth of Deighton’s novels to be narrated by the unnamed employee of WOOC(P) is the thrilling story of an anti-communist espionage network owned by a Texan billionaire, General Midwinter, run from a vast computer complex known as the Brain.After having been recruited by Harvey Newbegin, the narrator travels from the bone-freezing winter of Helsinki, Riga and Leningrad, to the stifling heat of Texas, and soon finds himself tangling with enemies on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

An Expensive Place to Die

1967

A 'clinic' on Paris' 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 psychedelic truth-drugs that's the set-up operated by the enigmatic Monsieur Daft. Naturally, it has a hidden purpose: to compile dossiers of tape and film on influential political clients from East and West. Into this twilight world of decadence and hidden motives come the agents of four world powers. Are they after Datt's pornographic blackmail dossiers? Or is their purpose, altogether more deadly than a trip to the blue movies ...?

Spy Story

1974

An attempted murder, the defection of a highly placed KGB official, and an explosive nuclear submarine chase beneath the Arctic Ocean seem to have little connection to one another. But they are the sparks that propel Pat Armstrong—also known as Harry Palmer—into the heart of a brutal East-West power play. And when Armstrong returns to his own apartment—where someone who looks and dresses just like him has taken up his identity—we are drawn into the world of spies and counterspies, plots and counterplots, that is Len Deighton's unbeatable trademark.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy

1976

US Secret Service high-up Colonel Mann is the main foil to the British agent in this story, which is set in the Arab world and the wastes of the north African Sahara desert, where our hero is sent to take custody of a defecting Russian scientist, Professor Bekuv. The narrator is unnamed. Things don’t go according to plan in this story. Loyalty is tested and never certain, as it becomes unclear as the novel develops who is actually chasing whom, and where the threat is coming from.

Author

Len Deighton

Author · 41 books

Deighton was born in Marylebone, London, in 1929. His father was a chauffeur and mechanic, and his mother was a part-time cook. After leaving school, Deighton worked as a railway clerk before performing his National Service, which he spent as a photographer for the Royal Air Force's Special Investigation Branch. After discharge from the RAF, he studied at St Martin's School of Art in London in 1949, and in 1952 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1955. Deighton worked as an airline steward with BOAC. Before he began his writing career he worked as an illustrator in New York and, in 1960, as an art director in a London advertising agency. He is credited with creating the first British cover for Jack Kerouac's On the Road. He has since used his drawing skills to illustrate a number of his own military history books. Following the success of his first novels, Deighton became The Observer's cookery writer and produced illustrated cookbooks. In September 1967 he wrote an article in the Sunday Times Magazine about Operation Snowdrop - an SAS attack on Benghazi during World War II. The following year David Stirling would be awarded substantial damages in libel from the article. He also wrote travel guides and became travel editor of Playboy, before becoming a film producer. After producing a film adaption of his 1968 novel Only When I Larf, Deighton and photographer Brian Duffy bought the film rights to Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop's stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! He had his name removed from the credits of the film, however, which was a move that he later described as "stupid and infantile." That was his last involvement with the cinema. Deighton left England in 1969. He briefly resided in Blackrock, County Louth in Ireland. He has not returned to England apart from some personal visits and very few media appearances, his last one since 1985 being a 2006 interview which formed part of a "Len Deighton Night" on BBC Four. He and his wife Ysabele divide their time between homes in Portugal and Guernsey.