Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The IPCRESS File is Len Deighton's first spy novel, published in 1962. The story involves Cold War brainwashing, includes scenes in Lebanon and on an atoll for a United States atomic weapon test, as well as information about Joe One, the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. The story was made into a film in 1965 produced by Harry Saltzman, directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine; and a 2022 TV series, starring Joe Cole, Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander.
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels.
Harry Palmer is the name given to the anti-hero protagonist of several films based on spy novels written by Len Deighton, in which the main character is an unnamed intelligence officer. For convenience, the novels are also often referred to as the "Harry Palmer" novels.
Billion-Dollar Brain is a 1966 Cold War spy novel by Len Deighton. It was the fourth to feature an unnamed secret agent working for the British WOOC(P) intelligence agency. It follows The IPCRESS File (1962), Horse Under Water (1963), and Funeral in Berlin (1964). As in most of Deighton's novels, the plot of Billion Dollar Brain (1967) is intricate, with many dead ends.
Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon is the fictional protagonist of many spy novels written by the British author "Manning Coles" from 1940 through 1963. He works for a department of the Foreign Office, usually referred to in the novels as "MI5" (counter-intelligence), although in the earliest books he is clearly working for the active overseas department MI6.
Horse Under Water (1963) is the second of several Len Deighton spy novels featuring an unnamed British intelligence officer. It was preceded by The IPCRESS File and followed by Funeral in Berlin.
Billion Dollar Brain is a 1967 British espionage film directed by Ken Russell and based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Len Deighton. The film features Michael Caine as secret agent Harry Palmer, the anti-hero protagonist. The "brain" of the title is a sophisticated computer with which an anti-communist organisation controls its worldwide anti-Soviet spy network.
The Laundry Files is a series of novels by British writer Charles Stross. They mix the genres of Lovecraftian horror, spy thriller, science fiction, and workplace humour. Their main character for the first five novels is "Bob Howard", a one-time I.T. consultant turned occult field agent. Howard is recruited to work for the Q-Division of SOE, otherwise known as "the Laundry", the British government agency which deals with occult threats. "Magic" is described as being a branch of applied computation (mathematics), therefore computers and equations are just as useful, and perhaps more potent, than classic spellbooks, pentagrams, and sigils for the purpose of influencing ancient powers and opening gates to other dimensions. These occult struggles happen largely out of view of the public, as the Laundry seeks to keep the methods for contacting such powers under wraps. There are also elements of dry humour and satirisation of bureaucracy.
Bernard Samson is a fictional character created by Len Deighton. Samson is a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – usually referred to as "the Department" in the novels. He is a central character in three trilogies written by Deighton, set in the years 1983–1988, with a large gap between 1984 and 1987. The first trilogy comprises the books Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match, the second comprises Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker, and the third and final trilogy comprises Faith, Hope and Charity. The plot of the entire trilogy of trilogies revolves around Samson's wife Fiona, also an intelligence officer, and which side she is really working for, after she has defected to the East Germans in the first trilogy, leaving a distraught Bernard with their two children. Her defection also causes some of his superiors to question his loyalty.
Icon is a thriller novel by British author Frederick Forsyth. Its plot centres on the politics of the Russian Federation in 1999, with an extremist party close to seizing power. Published by Bantam Press in September 1997, (ISBN 978-0-553-57460-9), Icon became a New York Times Bestseller and was adapted into a television film.
Berlin Game is a 1983 spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the first novel in the first of three trilogies about Bernard Samson, a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Berlin Game is part of the Game, Set and Match trilogy, being succeeded by Mexico Set and London Match, and followed by the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy and the final Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy. Deighton's novel Winter (1987) is a prequel to the nine novels, covering the years 1900-1945 and providing the backstory to some of the characters.
Winter is a 1987 novel by Len Deighton, which follows the lives of a German family from 1899 to 1945. At the same time the novel provides an historical background to several of the characters in Deighton's nine novels about the British intelligence agent Bernard Samson, who grew up in the ruins of Berlin after the Second World War.
Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film directed by Guy Hamilton and based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine as the character Harry Palmer that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File (1965). The third film was Billion Dollar Brain (1967).
The Ipcress File is a 1965 British spy film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine. The screenplay, by Bill Canaway and James Doran, was based on Len Deighton's novel The IPCRESS File (1962). It received a BAFTA award for the Best British film released in 1965. In 1999, it was included at number 59 on the BFI list of the 100 best British films of the 20th century.
An Expensive Place to Die is a 1967 novel by Len Deighton. It is set initially in Paris and takes its title from an Oscar Wilde quotation about the said city. The action concerns the shady dealing and possible expensive pimping of one Monsieur Datt against a background of espionage. This is the fifth novel in the "unnamed hero" series, but unlike the previous ones, it includes chapters and sections in the third person.
Spy Story is a 1974 spy novel by Len Deighton, which features minor characters from his earlier novels The IPCRESS File, Funeral in Berlin, Horse Under Water, and Billion Dollar Brain.
Colonel H. L. Ross is a fictional character from the series of novels by Len Deighton variously described as the "Secret File" or "Unnamed hero" novels. His first names are not revealed.
Len Deighton is an English author known for his novels, works of military history, screenplays and cookery writing. He had a varied career, including as a pastry cook, waiter, co-editor of a magazine, teacher and air steward before writing his first novel in 1962: The IPCRESS File. He continued to produce what his biographer John Reilly considers "stylish, witty, well-crafted novels" in spy fiction, including three trilogies and a prequel featuring Bernard Samson.
