Len Deighton

Len Deighton (born 1929) is a British novelist, historian and former illustrator best known for sophisticated espionage fiction and meticulously researched writing about the Second World War. Born in London, he grew up during the Blitz and later served in the RAF before studying at the Royal College of Art. He first achieved international success with The IPCRESS File in 1962, introducing the anonymous intelligence officer later popularly associated with the name Harry Palmer. Deighton went on to become one of the leading British spy novelists of the Cold War, writing Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin, Billion-Dollar Brain and An Expensive Place to Die, followed later by the Bernard Samson novels beginning with Berlin Game. His fiction is noted for its technical detail, sceptical treatment of intelligence bureaucracies and interest in the divided loyalties of people operating between Britain, Germany, the United States and the Soviet bloc.

Deighton also wrote several novels firmly set in the historical past, particularly during the Second World War. Bomber reconstructs a single RAF bombing raid over Germany in 1943 from the perspectives of aircrew, civilians and military personnel on both sides; Goodbye Mickey Mouse follows American fighter pilots stationed in wartime England; and City of Gold is an espionage novel set in Cairo during 1942, as British forces confront the possibility of Rommel reaching Egypt. Winter: A Novel of a Berlin Family follows two German brothers and their family from the beginning of the twentieth century through the First World War, the rise of Nazism and the destruction of Berlin in 1945. SS-GB is an alternative-history novel imagining Britain under German occupation after a Nazi victory in 1940. Deighton also wrote major nonfiction studies of the period, including Fighter, Blitzkrieg and Blood, Tears and Folly, reflecting the same sustained interest in warfare, technology and twentieth-century European history that informs his historical novels.