SPY FICTION

Len Deighton

Len Deighton studied at the Royal College of Art and established a successful career as an illustrator. During a holiday he wrote a manuscript but put it aside. In London, at a party, he met Jonathan Clowes, who was claiming to be a literary agent. Deighton claimed to be writer. The pair both proved good to their claims. In The Ipcress File Deighton created a nameless working-class intelligence officer whose home town was Burnley.

Harry Saltzman had just had a success with the movie of Ian Fleming's Dr No. He bought the film rights to Ipcress. This enabled Deighton to establish himself as a writer. Deighton thought that Harry H. Corbett, who was a Mancunian, should play the spy. Michael Caine was chosen and the character was given the name Harry Palmer.

John Le Carré

Cornwall joined M.I.5. He transferred to M.I.6.

Victor Gollancz's chief reader Jon Evans concluded that Cornwell's A Clear Case of Suicide manuscript was a Secret Service thriller of the first rank - by a born novelist . The firm undertook to publish it. The writer's day job meant that he needed a pseudonym. His initial choice was Jean Sanglas. The publisher was of the opinion that it should be more English and proposed Hank Brown, Chunk Smith, and Chuck Smith. Cornwell declined and opted for John le Carré. The book's name was changed to Call For The Dead. Upon publication, it secured favourable reviews. Subsequently, it was published in France, Germany, and the United States.

The protagonist of Le Carré's third novel, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, was George Smiley. He was Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung on his squat frame like skin on a sunken toad. That much of the action of the book took place in Berlin made it topical. It became a bestseller in both Britain and the United States. It was the best-seling spy novel up to that time. In America it was the best-selling novel of 1964.

Le Carr's work made the spy novel literary fiction.

Cornwall s first novel was Call For The Dead (1961). The book featured the character George Smiley. He was a composite, whose traits were drawn from: John Bingham 7^th Baron Clanmorris, who had been an M.I.5 officer; the University of Oxford academic Vivian H.H. Green, who had been Cornwall's tutor; and the school chaplain at Sherborne.

Le Carr based Smiley on Vivian Green, who was the Rector of Lincoln College where le Carr studied, and Lord Clanmorris, an M.I.5 colleague of le Carr .

Graham Greene declared that The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1963) was the best spy book that he had ever read. The book became an international hit.

Le Carr used spying as a medium through which to examine British society as its empire slipped away. His writing focuses upon the marginal, the seedy, and the betrayed.

Le Carr's terminology of words such as ferrets, lamplighters, moles, and pavement artists were taken up by people working in both M.I.5 and M.I.6.

Following the end of the Cold War Le Carr proved to be able to still write non-spy novels that attracted large readerships.

Website: https://johnlecarre.com

Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham worked in intelligence during the war. In the 1920s he created the agent Ashenden, a sceptical man who is engaged in a questionable profession. The work was realist in character portraying administrative confusion and inconclusive ends.

Eric Ambler had been an advertising copywriter. In the late 1930s Epitaph For A Spy and The Mask of Dimitrios delved into the European underworld of finance and power politics. His added a psychological dimension to the genre.

Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male (1939) created the mould for action thrillers.

The war prompted a return to escapism. Dennis Wheatley served on the War Cabinet's Joint Planning Staff. His The Scarlet Impostor (1940) was the first spy novel to be set during the war. He frequently mentioned brand names in order to try to counter its fanciful plot; this was an innovation. His job fed into the book so that it contained state-of-the-art strategic analysis.

Ian Fleming's Casino Royale (1953) was published. The book was packed with brand names.

During the 1960s the security services were wracked by disillusionment and paranoia. This stemmed from the revelation that during the war a number of double-agents had infiltrated them. This prompted the genre to revert to laying a greater emphasis on psychology. John Le Carr and Len Deighton to write novels about the search for moles. ¹

In the 1970s Frederick Forsyth started writing melodramas. However, these were deeply researched and were possible scenarios.

Writers such as Ken Follett and Jack Higgins started to investigate the Second World War. In their books the Nazis were often treated with considerable empathy.

Location: 2 Wyndham Place, W1H 2PP. Maugham's home

¹. The term mole was coined by Le Carr . It was adopted by intelligence officers.

David Backhouse 2024