Len Deighton

//Len Deighton
­
  • Since the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the British people have confronted no greater threat to their freedom than in 1940, when Hitler's armies swept through France in a  few scant weeks and stood poised twenty-one miles from Dover. Had the Luftwaffe then gained air supremacy over the English Channel, nothing could have prevented the first invasion of Britain in over 900 years.  This is the story of how Britain turned the prevailing tide, against all the odds - and won the day. Illustrated with photographs from private collections, drawings, diagrams and charts that clarifies the day by day events on both sides accompanied by text from witnesses and combatants that evoke those few desperate weeks of human endeavour and how the delicate balance was tipped - only just - in Britain's favour.
  • Harry Palmer, who has left MI5 to work as a private investigator, is told by a mechanical voice on the phone to take a package to Helsinki.  But he is abducted by his former MI5 superior, Colonel Ross  who coerces him into working once more for the British government in pursuing a conspiracy. After being captured and left for dead in Latvia, Harry is rescued by Colonel Stok , an old acquaintance from the KGB. Pursuing the conspiracy he arrives in Texas and meets oil tycoon General Midwinter who proudly displays his billion-dollar 'brain', a room full of computers that dispenses orders to his agents around the world. The General is in the midst of planning a rebellion which he thinks will trigger the fall of the Soviet Union. His plan -  infect the Red Army with viruses, a move that could trigger World War III. It's up to Harry to stop the virus, travelling via eggs, to the Soviet Union.

  • The first of a trilogy that takes up where Hook, Line and Sinker ended.  Bernard's wife Fiona cannot reconcile herself to his affair with the youthful Gloria, who now works alongside them both.  Bernard must fly to the grim streets of Magdeburg and the closely guarded sanctum  of the secret police and within hours, finds himself in a shoot out with Stasi agents. His best friend Werner is in disgrace and in exile, and Werner's father-in-law has seized his children. Caught between protocols and two women with his job on the line, the Cold War turns to ice.

  • The story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4.  The deeply reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother is the estranged son of a deskbound colonel; and the cocky Lieutenant Mickey Morse is well on his way to becoming America's Number One Flying Ace. Alike only in their courage, they forge a bond of friendship in battle with far-reaching consequences for themselves, and for the future of those they love. A multi dimensional picture of what it is to be at war and what is was to be in love in the England of 1944. Mickey Mouse: Slang for anything unnecessary or unimportant.
  • Book II in the Bernard Samson trilogy. Bernard needs to stay out of trouble for a while and get reacquainted with his wife Fiona and his children as he leaves behind his relationship with his lover Gloria. Then a wounded man arrives in the middle of the night, closely followed by Bernard's brother-in-law George Kosinski. The death of Tessa Kosinski on the night of Fiona's return to the West still casts a long shadow over the Department. Dickie Cruyer is concerned about George's connections in the East and when George goes missing, Bernard takes a strange trip with his boss deep into Poland.

  • Book I of Hook, Line and Sinker. Bernard Samson - protagonist of Berlin Game, Mexican Set and London Match -  plods through a Washington blizzard. Old pals are not as friendly, colleagues not so confiding as they used to be - or so it seems to him. It's been three years since his wife Fiona defected - a rejection on several levels and the tough, cynical and macho Samson finds rejections difficult to contend with. And after this trip to Washington, his life becomes even more precarious. Ignoring all warnings, friendly or otherwise, Samson pursues his own investigation into Fiona's defection. More competent than he would have the reader believe; less adept than he supposes at the intricacies of human relationships and the working of women's minds, he moves from one dark and perplexing scenario to the next - from London to the South of France and from Berlin to California, where Bernard Samson receives the surprise of his life.