Mister 8

Starting today, and continuing until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

I’ve been intending this series of posts for awhile, and it’s unfortunate that the sad news of the death of Karl Malden serves as the kick-off to the series, but so it goes….

Karl Malden credit in Billion Dollar Brain

In the last film of the Palmer trilogy, Billion Dollar Brain, Malden played Leo Newbegin, an old acquaintance of Harry’s who wants to get him involved in a profitable venture involving a supercomputer and a megalomaniacal Texas billionaire. Newbegin’s true goals aren’t cooperative or altruistic, but self-serving. In the end, he’s brought down by that commonplace Achille’s heel, love for a cold and uncaring, yet beautiful blonde.

Billion Dollar Brain was certainly not the highlight of Malden’s career (actually, it’s hard to put a finger on a single highlight — was it How the West Was Won? On the Waterfront? Patton? His role on television’s Streets of San Francisco?), but even here, in a mostly thankless role, he excels. In his character’s debut, he’s nude in a sauna, greeting the secret agent turned detective who once saved his life:

“It’s a bit warm in here for me, Leo,” says Palmer.

“Well don’t be shy, take your clothes off,” replies Newbegin. Then, responding to Palmer’s hesitation: “Oh, come on, don’t be so British!”

In fact, why don’t we enjoy that entire scene, which may have also been, as you’ll see in the end, an influence on nude scenes in the Austin Powers films:

Malden was one of those classic character actors, always recognizable from the bulbous nose he got from twice breaking it as a youth, but also melting into any character put before him. Malden would substantially improve any film that he was a part of, this one included.

Kees was kind enough to upload an interview with Malden from the set of Billion Dollar Brain. I thought this exchange was especially interesting:

Interviewer: It seems that the heroes of films today are the new ugly so-called, as opposed to the pretty boys of yesterday.

Malden: I think they’re coming to their fore — they’re just beginning to come to their fore. I think you take a look at Burt Lancaster. You take a look at Lee Marvin, you take a look at Ernest Borgnine, who is kind of the leader of this whole thing. I think we’re gonna have our day, and  I belong in that category, the leading man, the ugly leading man….

Billion Dollar Brain wasn’t Malden’s only spy film role. For more, see Wes Britton’s memorial post, Karl Malden — The Spy.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Roland Barthes famously wrote of the death of the author in his 1967 essay of the same name, espousing that, “We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.” Barthes felt that critical analysis of texts must come from texts themselves, and not from guessing at the author’s biographical background or intentions.

A worthy thought from a powerful essay, one that has influenced literary criticism since it’s publication three decades ago. And yet, perhaps in keeping with a culture that seeks to make celebrities of anyone, we still turn to our authors for the final word, rip apart their lives for clues to unravel their works, and revel in their dirty laundry as much, if not more so, than that of their characters.

Inevitably, we still turn to our authors for answers. And so, it’s hardly worth resisting the urge to share this recent BBC biographical documentary of Len Deighton, The Truth About Len Deighton, with Sir Michael Caine, Sir Max Hastings, journalist Peter Evans, advertiser / writer John Salmon, and others. It’s a quality piece of work, and even includes a bit where Deighton teaches the viewer to make a proper omelet (we’ll probably be coming back to this one later in the series).

Thanks to Toni B. at the Yahoo! Len Deighton Discussion Group for uploading this!

Note: As you click to play, this video will open a pop-up ad in a new window. I’m sorry for this, but it’s worth the second’s worth of annoyance to see this wonderful documentary!

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Today I intend to start reading Len Deighton’s The IPCRESS File, and you should too! If you don’t have a copy, you should order one. And to hold you over while that one arrives, I’ve included the prologue and first chapter of the book below.

***

PROLOGUE

Copy to: no. 1. Copies 2
Action: W.O.O.C.(P).
Origin: Cabinet.
Authority: PH6.
Memoranda:
Please prepare summary of Dossier M/1993 /GH 222223
for Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Defence.

THEY came through on the hot [permanently open] line at about half past two in the afternoon. The Minister didn’t quite understand a couple of points in the summary. Perhaps I could see the Minister.

Perhaps.

The Minister’s flat overlooked Trafalgar Square and was furnished like Oliver Messel did it for Oscar Wilde. He sat in the Sheraton, I sat in the Hepplewhite and we peeped at each other through the aspidistra plant.

‘Just tell me the whole story in your own words, old chap. Smoke?’

I was wondering whose words I might otherwise have used as he skimmed the aspidistra with his slim gold cigarette case. I beat him to the draw with a crumpled packet of Gauloises; I didn’t know where to begin.

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ I said. ‘The first document in the dossier…’

The Minister waved me down. ‘Never mind the dossier, my dear chap, just tell me your personal version. Begin with your first meeting with this fellow…’ he looked down to his small morocco bound notebook, ‘Jay. Tell me about him.’

‘Jay. His code-name is changed to Box Four,’ I said.

‘That’s very confusing,’ said the Minister, and wrote it down in his book.

‘It’s a confusing story,’ I told him. ‘I’m in a very confusing business.’

The Minister said, ‘Quite,’ a couple of times, and I let a quarter inch of ash away towards the blue Kashan rug.

‘I was in Lederers about 12.55 on a Tuesday morning the first time I saw Jay,’ I continued.

‘Lederers?’ said the Minister. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s going to be very difficult for me if I have to answer questions as I go along,’ I said. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Minister, I’d prefer you to make a note of the questions, and ask me afterwards.’

‘My dear chap, not another word, I promise.’

And throughout the entire explanation he never again interrupted.

(more…)

Playwright John Osborne

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

A busy day today, so I’m only a couple of chapters into The IPCRESS File. How’s your progress coming at home? I wish it had occurred to me before yesterday that this series of posts could probably benefit from a “book club” style conversation. I hope that those of you who haven’t read The IPCRESS File will give it a chance, if you’re not already, and that those of you who have already read it are inspired to give the novel at least a refresher skim.

Today, I want to briefly touch upon a…I hesitate to call it a literary movement — perhaps more of a phenomenon or environment…that might help explain the anonymous character who would later be filmed as “Harry Palmer.” I won’t assume that the group of creators, sometimes dubbed “angry young men,” by the critics and press, or their works were a direct influence on Deighton, but that they were at least writing about the same social conditions. I had originally intended with this post to explore a number of different authors and works that would inform a reading of The IPCRESS File, but in researching and writing have found that an extended look at one work should do the trick:

John Osborne -- Look Back in Anger (1956)

Osborne is often hailed as the prototypical example of the “angry young man” writer. Indeed, the phrase was said to be coined by press officer George Fearon in response to Osborne’s 1956 play. Though there are earlier examples (Kingsley Amis’ titular character in Lucky Jim, for instance, or even in Graham Greene’s short story “The Destructors”), the lead character in Osborne’s play, Jimmy Porter, personifies the anger, as he spits acidic diatribes that stem from his hope for a better society and the cynical view that such hopes are futile.

These writers, and their characters, were of a generation of young British men who fought in the war, were treated somewhat equally in social status and class to that of their peers during their service time, received an education, and then promptly found that, post-war, nothing had really changed for them. Amidst the rubble of the bombings, England was rebuilding, and in that rebuilding, was changing. This wave of literature, which gave rise to so-called “kitchen sink” realist films, was part of that change. So, it might be argued, was the rise in popularity of the Liverpudlian Beatles.

The “heroes” of the “angry young man” are discontented with their place outside of the establishment, but are also sort-of in-betweeners, often having to reconcile their lower and middle-class upbringings and their upper-class educations. They struggle to find a place to be happy, without constantly feeling the pressure of those above them. Often, the characters were not so much angry as disillusioned and alienated. As Jimmy’s wife, Allison, tells her father in act two of Look Back in Anger: “You’re hurt because everything’s changed, and Jimmy’s hurt because everything’s stayed the same.”

The play opens with Jimmy, Allison, and their supportive lodger Cliff, and takes place entirely in their shared flat. Allison’s background is, if not upper-class then nearly so, and Jimmy comes from a working-class family. He, ironically, works in a sweets shop, a job for which his college education over-prepared him, and spends much of his time acrimoniously deriding post-war England and accosting his flatmates. Tensions arise from two developments: Helena, an equally upper-crust friend of Allison’s, arrives and creates a rift, and Allison slowly lets everyone know that she’s pregnant with Jimmy’s child, with Jimmy finding out last of all. In the end of the second act, Allison’s father arrives to take her home, after Helena places a rescue call, and by the beginning of the third act, the situation has seemingly changed completely though some things look familiar….

Here’s a clip with Kenneth Branagh as Porter, in a well-made “filmed play” version from 1989 (directed by Dame Judi Dench, also with Emma Thompson, Siobhan Redmond and Gerard Horan):

The play was made into a film in 1958, and in this case there is a direct connection to the later Palmer movies: Look Back In Anger, made by influential director Tony Richardson with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom, was one of the first achievements by producer Harry Saltzman, who would go on to produce the Caine films. Along with another Saltzman production, 1960’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (based on the novel by another “angry young” author, Alan Sillitoe), this adaptation of Osborne’s play would play a role kicking off the British New Wave film movement. And so, in a way, The IPCRESS File, coming in 1965, is a combination of Saltzman’s greatest successes to that point — the “kitchen sink” representation of the day-to-day life of a working class bloke, with the high tech gadgets and codenamed villains of the James Bond films.

(Another spy film connection that’s probably obvious — Burton and Bloom were, of course, the stars of Martin Ritt’s 1965 adaptation of LeCarre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. There’s more to just the casting, however. I can see Alec Leamas as an “angry middle-aged man” dealing with the same feelings of disillusionment.)

Look Back in Anger movie poster

In Deighton’s work, and later through the interpretation by Michael Caine, the “Palmer” character faces the same issues of class and not belonging. He responds not with anger, but with sarcasm and sass. As Andrew Spicer writes in his, Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema: “In the novels, [the Palmer character] is identified as a displaced ’scholarship boy’, a figure from a provincal university, resentful about the privileges conferred by birth, class, a public-school education and the Old Boy network, who dissociates himself from the Establishment by his cyncial humour” (77). Deighton himself was born in a workhouse (as you’ll recall from the documentary, because the hospital was full up), to a chauffeur and a part-time cook.

“Palmer” exists in that in-between — not upper-class, but not really lower-class anymore either — a state perhaps most acknowledged through his love of gourmet food. My favorite scene in the movie adaptation, which we’ll revisit later, is the grocery store scene in which Ross implies that Palmer is attempting to purchase status by favoring the champignons over the button mushrooms. Caine proves his upper-class tastes through his methodical food preparation, but betrays his roots every time he speaks in that Cockney accent.

I’m sure we’ll be talking more about these issues later, but I wanted to explore some of these thoughts as a basis for my reading of the novel. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the subject as well (please comment!).

One last note of interest. Osborne, the angry young man who wrote Look Back in Anger wound up playing opposite Caine as one of the most laid-back, but dangerous villains ever to grace the screen in Mike Hodges’ 1971 film Get Carter.  In his auto-biography, What’s It All About?, Caine describes Osborne as a personal hero, and says, “[He] was cast as the chief villain and he was marvelous. He had not acted much since his success as a writer and he really seemed to enjoy his role of the ruthless gang boss, even though he was not typical casting.”

Jean (Fenella Woolgar) and The Agent (Ian Hart)

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Since I didn’t warn you all with enough advance time that we’d be reading The IPCRESS File this week, I think I’ve found a sort of alternative. Following this, we’ll at least be reading Horse Under Water (1963), Funeral in Berlin (1964), and the Billion Dollar Brain (1965). I’m not sure yet, but we may also read An Expensive Place to Die (1967), Spy Story (1974) and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy (1976), which are sometimes referred to as “Harry Palmer” novels, though the jury is still out on whether that distinction is true.

So…find these books now! Reserve them at your library! Seek them out at used book stores! Failing that, follow the links above and purchase them from Amazon (full disclosure: I’ll get a little kickback from such purchases. I think somewhere around 4%, which means that if you buy the one-cent used paperback, I’ll make roughly $0.0004).

In the meantime: The audio file that is playable below is the first of three that make up a 2004 BBC radio production of The IPCRESS File. I’ve only listened to the first few minutes, but so far the radio play seems to be a fairly faithful, if condensed, version of the novel, and Ian Hart does a good job as a coolly disinterested secret agent. If it veers completely from the book later, it will at least provide another counterpoint for our discussion.

Here’s what the BBC said about the production when they released it (original airdate — January 17):

The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton has become one of the great popular icons of the post-war era, through both the book itself and the film starring Sir Michael Caine. This brilliant thriller is as exciting today as the day it was published. And this new radio dramatisation remains faithful to the book, most noticeably in the character of the narrator. In the film, Michael Caine played Londoner Harry Palmer but, in the book, the narrator has no name and is from Burnley. Not a lot of people know that!

The narrator is a grammar school boy who transfers from Army Intelligence to a new agency which operates out of London’s Charlotte Street. He finds himself looking for a man named Jay, who runs an organisation that gets scientists, willing or not, into the communist block. His speciality is brain-washing.

The narrator begins to discover that all is not as clear-cut as it seemed when he and his boss are present at US Atomic bomb tests in the Pacific. In a world of espionage, who do you trust – and what happens if  suspicion falls on you? The narrator finds out as old friends turn into new enemies and he is arrested by the CIA, who return him to his “communist” employers in Hungary.

Can the narrator trust anyone at all – even himself – or will he be destroyed by the very system that he is there to defend?

The IPCRESS File is dramatised by Mike Walker, one of radio’s leading writers with over 40 original plays to his credit, including the Sony Award-winners Different States and Alpha. Ian Hart plays The Agent and Fenella Woolgar plays Jean.

Producer/Toby Swift

Here’s the full cast:

• The Agent….Ian Hart
• Ross….James Laurenson
• Dalby….Jonathan Coy
• Jean….Fenella Woolgar
• Jay….Peter Marinker
• Chico….Jamie Bamber
• Skip….Kerry Shale
• Keightley….Adam Tedder
• Alice….Rachel Atkins
• Battersby….John Sharian
• Adem….Raad Rawi
• Embassy Official….Declan Wilson.

The music is, of course, adapted from John Barry’s film score. I’m going to take these audio files down after a week and a half, so you’d better listen while the listening is good!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

This is the second part of the BBC adaptation of the IPCRESS File from 2004, dramatized by Mike Walker, and starring Ian Hart as “The Agent.” For more details, see yesterday’s post. I’ll be taking this file down in 1.5 weeks, so listen now!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

This is the final portion of the BBC adaptation of the IPCRESS File from 2004, dramatized by Mike Walker, and starring Ian Hart as “The Agent.” For more details, see Wednesday’s post. I’ll be taking this file down in a week and a half, so listen now!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

The China Syndrome

If’n you’re reading along at home, we’ll plan to unleash discussion of The IPCRESS File / spoiler alerts for Monday. So, if you can, prepare yourself!

In the meantime, over at the Len Deighton Yahoo! Group, Jeremy Duns points out that one of Deighton’s most obvious lasting influences on the spy thriller genre can be seen in the titles of books by other authors in the decades that followed The IPCRESS File:

…The  title of The IPCRESS File, perhaps through Forsyth and others, created a new sort of formula for titles that was popularised by Robert Ludlum: The Holcroft Covenant, The Chancellor Manuscipt, The Bourne Identity. They all sound like Deighton novels not written by him – even though they’re nothing like him, of course.

Looking around in a used bookstore today, I was struck by how widespread this naming convention has gone. Nearly every book on the thriller shelf has a The [Proper Name] [Noun] pattern. Then it also occurred to me that a few of my favorite bands, because they follow the same pattern, have always struck me as having names that would fit thriller novels.

So I thought I’d put my readers to the test. Can you figure out which is the thriller novel title, and which is the band name? Let’s find out!

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

I found this article in the NY Times Historical Database, and thought it might be a good introduction to discussing The IPCRESS File (remember, our discussion starts on Monday!). This is a brief overview of the state of spy fiction a few years after publication of Len Deighton’s first novel, with astute commentary by mystery writer / editor / Borges translator / reviewer extraordinaire Anthony Boucher. There are inevitably a number of thoughts and questions this article raises, that I’d be happy to discuss in the comments, although I plan on touching upon them in my discussion of IPCRESS.

* * *

Originally published: June 7, 1964

There’s A Spy Between the Covers

By Anthony Boucher

Close observers of the bestseller list on page 8 have noticed an unprecedented phenomenon in recent months: the persistence in the top sales brackets of three novels of espionage–John Le Carre’s “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” Helen MacInnes’s “The Ventian Affair,” and (until quite recently) Ian Flemings “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

Actual sales figures on these books are even more impressive. The Fleming has sold over 70,000–well above any previous Fleming. The MacInnes has sold over 80,000 (and is still selling over 1,000 a week)–again well above any of the author’s earlier books. And “The Spy” has sold around 163,000, or probably about 25 times the sales of both previous Le Carré novels. The initial print order on the paperback edition will be in the neighborhood of 750,000. His first spy novel, “Call for the Dead,” is now in paperback in an edition of over half a million. The softcover edition of “O.H.M.S.S.” will be one million, bringing the total of Ian Fleming in print in this country to over 12 million.

Spy novels, even those of the acknowledged master, Eric Ambler, have never sold like this before, nor is this strictly an American phenomenon. A recent London Daily Mail bestseller list of 10, fiction and non-fiction, includes four novels, all of them dealing with espionage. (The just-mentioned Le Carré and MacInnes titles, plus the new Fleming, “You Only Live Twice”–to appear here in August–and Gavin Lyall’s “The Most Dangerous Game.”)

A spy writer, the late Jean Bruce, is the most successful popular novelist in France since Simenon; and espionage novels make up an even larger part of publishing in France than they do here, where they seem to constitute almost half of my reviewing duties in the suspense field. Two of the annual French literary prizes are awarded solely for romans d’espionnage (One of them is attractively named, in honor of the most entertaining spy of World War II, Le Prix Cicéron). And there is even a Russian spy novelist Lev Ovalov (but he got a bad review in Pravda–his American secret agent was properly sinister but much too capable).

Spy stories we have always had with us. Like everything else, they can be traced back to the Bible. (See for instance, Joshua ii for the fine story of Rahab the harlot and the spies of Israel.) There are spy narratives in the Sherlock Holmes canon (including the classic “His Last Bow”); and even before World War I there flourished such specialists in spy fiction as E. Phillips Oppenheim and the earlier and even less remembered William Le Queux.

This was all (save, of course, the Biblical accounts) in the unrealistic school of glamour-espionage to which Fleming still adheres. Still colorfully theatrical, but with some closer adherence to the laws of both life and literature, were the magnificent pursuit stories of John Buchan (”The Thirty-Nine Steps,” 1915). The first reasonably realistic stories of espionage may be in “Ashenden” or “The British Agent” (1928) by Somerset Maugham, who had himself served the Foreign Office during the war.

It was in the late 1930’s with the people of England and America becoming more and more aware of international politics ander their implications, that the spy novel came of age. First there was Eric Ambler with “Background to Danger” (1937), then Graham Greene with “The Confidential Agent” (1939); and it became apparent that a spy novel could be as well written and meaningful as an other form of fiction.
With the approaching rumbles of World War II, a number of admirable writers turned for the first time to chronicling international intrigue. Margery Allingham, Nicholas Blake, Helen McCloy, Ngaio Marsh and many others, most notably Michael Innes, saved the free world from fascism in skillfully written entertainments; and Peter Cheyney, in this “Dark series, starting with “Dark Duet” (1943), brought the bitter techniques of Hammett to this most suitable of topics. Even Kay Boyle joined the throng.

Afterwards (one is tempted to say, “between wars”) these writers returned to their usual more private violences; and it is only in the past few years that the publication of spy stories has equaled and even surpassed (in quantity, and once in a while in quality) its wartime level.

Now there are a number of writers devoting apparently full time to such fiction. Most noteworthy, aside from those already mentioned, are England’s William Haggard, who possesses, in addition to a dry wit, a fine eye and ear for the subtle intricacies of top-level political intrigue, and America’s Donald Hamilton, who demonstrates, in a series of paperback novels about a professional killer in counter-espionage, an authentic toughness of mind unmatched in this field since Cheyney (and possibly in any field since Hammett). On the more flamboyant and colorful side are England’s Desmond Cory and John Blackburn and America’s Edward S. Aarons and Stephen Marlowe.

The most austere chronicler of the slogging day-by-day dullness of much spy-activity is Simon Harvester; Len Deighton, on the strength of one book (”The IPCRESS File,” 1963) seems to be developing an odd and unclassifiably amused viewpoint of his own. Gavin Lyall (mentioned above as an English best seller) is unrivaled for vigor of storytelling and clear complication of plotting. Michael Gilbert, who has written in almost every type of suspense, is now creating a memorable series of espionage short stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

The spy story is, by and large in good shape today. So is what Julian Symons calls “the modern crime novel”–which attempts, and so often successfully, to combine the mainstream novel’s probing of character with the whodunit’s ability to puzzle and surprise. Yet there is no comparable build-up for Mr. Symons or Margaret Millar or Charity Blackstock, who are as good in their way as Le Carré. Why these phenomenal sales for only one aspect of the widely variegated “novel of suspense”? Why is everybody suddenly reading spy novels?

There are certain obvious contributory factors; such as President Kennedy’s endorsement of the work of the then only moderately successful Ian Fleming, or the superb promotional job that an enthusiastic publisher performed for “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.” But let me venture a more basic guess.

Espionage is a reality closer to the average man than at any previous time in history. The C.I.A. has had far more detailed news coverage than did ever the O.S.S. We are more aware of the spy behind the arras when we read of international affairs, and the reality of espionage presses upon us even more closely than that. Our businesses have their own methods of spying upon each other, and upon us. We know, thanks to George Orwell in prophecy and Vance Packard in recent reportage, that few moments of our lives are inaccessible to someone’s spy. We have, in short, come to accept espionage as part of the certain human condition, and thereby to accept is as a normal part of any kind of fiction.

According to Boucher’s Third Law, the microcosm repeates the macrocosm. Within the spy novel, you will find everything that you find in the novel itself, from extravagant romance to sober realism, form trash to serious literature. And all these aspects are no longer ghettoized as The Suspense Novel: Subdivision X, Espionage. Today, they are subsumed into general fiction, and sell just as they would if they were about–

Wasn’t it Jane Austen who said, “I write about love and money; what else is there?” In this world of 1984 minus 20, make it love, money and espionage.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Here are some nice candid photos of author Len Deighton from Google’s Life Magazine image archive. I’m assuming these originally accompanied the article “Spy Writer on the Lam — Britain’s Len Deighton finds fame a huge bother,” by Hugh Moffett in the March 25, 1966 edition of Life.

All photographs are by Paul Schutzer and can be purchased printed and in frames through Google.