Len Deighton

Author Information
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  • Bibliography:
    32 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1962
  • Latest Book:
    October 2011
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About the Author

Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, graphic artist, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine.

Len Deighton is the author of more than thirty books of fiction and nonfiction, including, Funeral in Berlin, as well as his internationally acclaimed histories of World War II. Born in London, he served in the RAF before graduating from the Royal College of Art, which later elected him a Senior Fellow. While he has lived in many different places, at present he is living in Europe.

Full Series List in Order

Bernard Samson

1 - Berlin Game (1983)
2 - Mexico Set (1984)
3 - London Match (1985)
4 - Spy Hook (Dec-1988)
5 - Spy Line (1989)
6 - Spy Sinker (1990)
7 - Faith (Sep-1994)
8 - Hope (1995)
9 - Charity (1996)

Harry Palmer

1 - The Ipcress File (1962)
2 - Horse Under Water (1963)
3 - Funeral in Berlin (1964)
4 - The Billion Dollar Brain (1966)
5 - An Expensive Place to Die (1967)
6 - Spy Story (Sep-1974)
7 - Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy // Catch a Falling Spy (1976)

Book List in Order: 32 titles

  • The Ipcress File

    Harry Palmer - 1

    A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped, and a secret British intelligence agency has just recruited Deighton’s iconic unnamed protagonist -- later christened Harry Palmer -- to find out why. His search begins in a grimy Soho club and brings hi...

  • Horse Under Water

    Harry Palmer - 2

    The sequel to Len Deighton's game-changing debut The IPCRESS File, Horse Under Water sees its nameless, laconic narrator sent from fogbound London to the Algarve, where he must dive through layers of deceit in a place rotten with betrayals....

  • Funeral in Berlin

    Harry Palmer - 3

    “Deighton, Greene and John le Carré comprise the reigning triumvirate of fictional spymasters beside whom all others pale.” -- Seattle TimesIn 1963, Berlin is dark and dangerous. Len Deighton’s skilled, jaded, anony­mous hero of The IPCRESS F...

  • The Billion Dollar Brain

    Harry Palmer - 4

    The classic spy thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniacâ,"s private cold war, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File.The fourth of Deightonâ,"s novels to be narrated by the unnamed employee of WOO...

  • An Expensive Place to Die

    Harry Palmer - 5

    An unnamed spy - perhaps the same reluctant hero of The Ipcress File - is sent to Paris to deliver a file of nuclear secrets to a French doctor, but soon finds himself sucked into a twilight world of sex, blackmail and hidden motive, where friend and...

  • Only When I Laugh

    The year is 1968. The place is New York. Three virtuoso con artists are at work. Silas is the leader, Bob is the young apprentice, and Liz, Silas' mistress, is in between. On Manhattan's Upper East Side, they pull off a "business deal" worth mil...

  • Bomber

    Len Deighton -- one of the masters of twentieth-century espionage fiction -- combines his expertise as both historian and novelist in Bomber, the classic World War II novel that relates, in devastating detail, the twenty-four-hour story of an all...

  • Close-Up

    Deighton''s incendiary novel of the film industry back in print after 20 years. A Hollywood Babylon for our time.Marshall Stone, international superstar and charismatic member of Hollywood''s elite. Abundantly blessed with charm, genius and wealth, t...

  • Declarations of War

    In Len Deighton's only collection of short fiction, he explores the effects of war on human nature and how it pushes us to act like machines, often leading to extraordinary deeds, both good and bad. Thirteen compelling stories span twenty-three cent...



  • Spy Story

    Harry Palmer - 6

    A Russian admiral prefers defection to death . . . a beautiful blonde does custom-tailoring for cadavers ... a London computer center plays at macabre war games . . . a cocky colonel in the American Marines takes over a British intelligence caper ......

  • Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy // Catch a Falling Spy

    Harry Palmer - 7

    A Soviet space scientist defects to win academic freedom, but western intelligence has other plans for him, and sends an unnamed spy - perhaps the same reluctant hero of The Ipcress File - to look after him. But what follows is a blood-streaked tr...

  • Catch a Falling Spy

    A high-class, low-profile British agent joins the CIA in a riveting spellbinder of intricate spy networks, ruthless power politics, violence, and daring double-crosses that races across three continents to reach its explosive conclusion....

  • Xpd

    “A stunning spy story… incomparable.” " The GuardianIt’s 1979, and a group of former SS officers are devising a plan to seize power in West Germany. XPD is a brilliant novel constructed around a supposition that Churchill secretly met with ...

  • Fighter

  • Goodbye, Mickey Mouse

    Norfolk, December, 1943. A group of US fighter pilots is camped at an air base; their job is to escort bombers over Germany. Each mission could be their last. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is a vivid evocation of wartime England and a brilliant, multi-dimensi...

  • Berlin Game

    Bernard Samson - 1

    BRAHMS FOUR WANTS OUT This alarming signal means that one of Britain's most reliable, most valuable agents behind the Iron Curtain is urgently demanding safe passage to the West. It sends a ripple of panic through the highest levels of the British...

  • Mexico Set

    Bernard Samson - 2

    THE STAGE IS SET Now, on the shadowy East-West battlefield of Mexico City, British intelligence agent Bernard Samson must entice his opposite number, a disaffected KGB major, to take the final, dramatic step-and defect. But the price of one Rus...

  • London Match

    Bernard Samson - 3

    Bernard Samson suspects there is a traitor within his department of MI6. A jaded but highly skilled British intelligence agent nearing the end of his career, Samson already got KGB major Eric Stinnes to defect. But when a British KGB agent makes a sw...

  • Winter

    “What raises Deighton's genre to art is not only his absorbing characters but his metaphoric grace, droll wit, command of technical detail . . . and sure sense of place.” -- Washington PostPeter and Paul Winter, sons of a German businessman, are ...



  • Spy Hook

    Bernard Samson - 4

    “In Deighton’s best books -- like this one -- the narrative glides forward on rollers, and the scenes and characters fit perfectly into place. The result is marvellous.” -- The IndependentWhen the Department sends Bernard Samson to Washington ...

  • Spy Line

    Bernard Samson - 5

    HERO'S WELCOME British agent Bernard Samson is back from his harrowing mission in Len Deighton's masterful novel SPY HOOK. Now, in SPY LINE, Samson is not rewarded for his extraordinary success; instead, he is inexplicably hunted as a traitor, for...

  • Spy Sinker

    Bernard Samson - 6

    A SPY TO THE END The hero of SPYHOOK and SPYLINE returns for a final bow in Len Deighton's thrilling new novel, SPY SINKER. British agent Bernard Samson's family and career are about to be betrayed and crushed by his wife--lovely, brilliant Fiona ...

  • Mamista

    As a group of Marxist revolutionaries in Spanish Guiana prepare to unseat their country's leader, a group of high-powered men in Washington prepare to keep the current government intact and capitalize on the small country's newfound oil. Reprint....

  • City of Gold

    In 1942 Cairo, escaped prisoner Jim Ross takes on the identity of his dead escort and finds himself searching for the spy in British Intelligence who is revealing top-secret data to Rommel and his German forces. Reprint....

  • Ss-Gb

    “Deighton's best book . . . an absorbingly exciting spy story that is also a fascinating exercise in might-have-been speculation.” -- The New York Times Book ReviewIt is 1941 and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed, a...

  • Violent Ward

    OUT OF CONTROL -- CALIFORNIA STYLE Criminal lawyer Mickey Murphy may be the last sane man in L.A., but when savvy entrepreneur Zach Petrovitch takes over Murphy's law firm, Mickey's up to his ears in a very messy multimillion-dollar deal. From a...

  • Faith

    Bernard Samson - 7

    WHEN ALL IS LOST, A MAN CAN DEPEND ON ONE THING ABOVE ALL Bestselling author Len Deighton is back, better than ever before, with an electrifying new espionage trilogy, featuring Bernard Samson, the intrepid, insolent, and enigmatic hero of Len Dei...

  • Hope

    Bernard Samson - 8

    SPY, STAR, SURVIVOR As the Berlin Wall begins to crumble, Bernard Samson is caught up in an ever-changing situation and the devious squabbles that infest the service. And as cold-war loyalties shift in the freezing wind, Samson is forced back into...

  • Charity

    Bernard Samson - 9

    FOR BERNARD SAMSON, THE END IS NEAR. In the concluding volume of Len Deighton's superb trilogy that began with Faith and Hope, Bernard Samson continues to peel away the mystery surrounding the cold-blooded murder of his sister-in-law, Tessa, on th...



  • Only When I Larf

    The three confidence tricksters - two blokes and a bird - had a style that earned them millions.

    Silas was the leader, slick and self-assured " but dissatisfied. Bob was the junior partner, longing for the open road where pickings were ric...

  • Twelve Good Men and True

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

  • Yesterday's Spy

    • / Thriller
    • Buy Buy

    Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with the man who led the old anti-Nazi Guernica network. Time to reopen the master file on yesterday''s spy.Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with the man who led the old anti-Nazi...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Len Deighton has published 32 books.

Len Deighton does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Only When I Larf, was published in October 2011.

The first book by Len Deighton, The Ipcress File, was published in January 1962.

Yes. Len Deighton has 2 series.
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