Len Deighton, Novelist, RIP

Hi Woodsy

I expect you have already seen this, but I just spotted a news item on the death of writer Len Deighton (18th February 1929- 15th March 2026), aged 97. You have mentioned him so often, and I even have his cookbook, as well as a couple of the films based on his novels.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

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Woodsy adds:

Thanks Paul, It's a great shame. I associate Len Deighton with my late Dad really, so it feels doubly sad, as it was his taste in novels. Deighton stood in his bookcase alongside Sixties writers Alistair McClean, John le Carre and Jack Higgins. My Dad was in the Navy in WWII and enjoyed his post-war spies in particular, which rubbed off on me during the Sixties spy craze and I still have the spy bug.

I haven't read any of Len Deighton's books myself, which I ought to rectify, if anything, to see what my Dad liked so much. The titles are part of spy book culture now, like Funeral in Berlin.

Several became famous Michael Caine movies, him playing the tough bespectacled Harry Palmer in Billion Dollar Brain, Funeral in Berlin and The Ipcress File, perhaps the most well-known. 

Here's Funeral in Berlin on VHS, given the Caine cover treatment.

The Ipcress File even made it to the toy factory and became a Milton Bradley board game. Now as collectable as Harry Palmers specs it's one I've never seen in the flesh ( not to be confused with the Odessa File game, which I have owned).

Have you any Len Deighton or Harry Palmer books and things?

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Unlike the US version, this one was listed with a Big Pen included.

I've never known what that Big Pen was. 

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Simple walkie talkies.

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