Len Deighton brought "a more insolent, disillusioned and cynical style to the espionage story"...
That's how film and media historian Alan Burton described The IPCRESS File but it could equally apply to Bernard Samson and the Berlin/Mexico/London trilogy of books. These books are all centered on Bernard Samson, a tough, cynical and disrespectful MI6 intelligence officer.
Deighton started writing spy fiction in 1960 and his first novel, The IPCRESS File, was published in 1962; it had been written in 1960 while he was staying in the Dordogne. The book was soon a commercial success. The story introduced a working class protagonist, cynical and tough, who was only given the name "Harry" through the novel and its sequels, although he was given the name Harry Palmer in the 1962 film adaptation.
Deighton considers the character is not an anti-hero, but "a romantic, incorruptible figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe". Deighton described the inspiration of using a working-class spy among the Oxbridge-educated members of the Establishment came from his time at the advertising agency, when he was the only member of the company's board not to have been educated at Eton. He said "The IPCRESS File is about spies on the surface, but it's also really about a grammar school boy among public school boys and the difficulties he faces." This theme seems to have continued throughout his writing career.
From 1983 Deighton wrote a trio of trilogies, Berlin Game (1983); Mexico Set (1984) and London Match (1985); Spy Hook (1988); Spy Line (1989) and Spy Sinker (1990); and Faith (1994); Hope (1995) and Charity (1996). Winter, a companion novel, dealing with the lives of a German family from 1899 to 1945, which also provides an historical background to several of the characters from the trilogies, was published in 1987.
Some items taken from Wikipedia entry on Deighton.
Deighton started writing spy fiction in 1960 and his first novel, The IPCRESS File, was published in 1962; it had been written in 1960 while he was staying in the Dordogne. The book was soon a commercial success. The story introduced a working class protagonist, cynical and tough, who was only given the name "Harry" through the novel and its sequels, although he was given the name Harry Palmer in the 1962 film adaptation.
Deighton considers the character is not an anti-hero, but "a romantic, incorruptible figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe". Deighton described the inspiration of using a working-class spy among the Oxbridge-educated members of the Establishment came from his time at the advertising agency, when he was the only member of the company's board not to have been educated at Eton. He said "The IPCRESS File is about spies on the surface, but it's also really about a grammar school boy among public school boys and the difficulties he faces." This theme seems to have continued throughout his writing career.
From 1983 Deighton wrote a trio of trilogies, Berlin Game (1983); Mexico Set (1984) and London Match (1985); Spy Hook (1988); Spy Line (1989) and Spy Sinker (1990); and Faith (1994); Hope (1995) and Charity (1996). Winter, a companion novel, dealing with the lives of a German family from 1899 to 1945, which also provides an historical background to several of the characters from the trilogies, was published in 1987.
Some items taken from Wikipedia entry on Deighton.
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