Master of the British spy novel: Len Deighton is dead

He leaves behind 39 books, including several historical works about the Second World War and another series of spy novels. According to British media, as an author of cookbooks he also helped to introduce French cuisine to the British. As an illustrator, he also designed more than 200 book covers.

His debut novel, The Ipcress File, published in 1962, remained Deighton’s most famous work. It was the start of a whole series for his agent character, who only received his name Harry Palmer in the 1965 film adaptation – and the character of the actor Michael Caine, for whom it became one of his most distinctive roles.

His agent shapes the aesthetics of the Sixties

Caine as Palmer became a symbol of the era, the Times wrote on Tuesday. Deighton’s novels would have benefited from the zeitgeist that was already shaped by Ian Fleming’s existing James Bond series. Deighton’s work was more of a contrast to this – from the working class, against the establishment, sometimes quirky, but overall more substantial, the newspaper summarizes the juxtaposition in the British spy novel age. Fleming’s Bond ultimately became the bigger name, but Deighton had more influence on the genre and the aesthetics of the 1960s.

In 2017, another of Deighton’s works was filmed in the BBC production “SS-GB”. Like the 1978 novel of the same name, the miniseries depicted a dystopian scenario in which the Nazis defeated Great Britain in World War II and a detective in the black market environment finds himself caught between the SS, Scotland Yard and the resistance movement.

His debut work “Ipcress”, which started everything for Deighton, also received a new film release in 2022, as a television series with “Peaky Blinders” star Joe Cole.