Can Deighton help the microwave generation?

Interesting new article here in The Guardian by its new columnist Rachel Cooke, reminiscing about Len Deighton's Action Cook Book. This, his most well-remembered of cook books from the sixties, is being reissued later this spring by Harper Collins in a new edition. Back in the sixties it made as much impact as The Ipcress File in its innovative approach, its direct marketing at the bachelor male, and its characteristic cook strip approach which was far in advance of anything that had gone before in a world more used to Mrs Beeton than Harry Palmer.

Cooke writes enthusiastically about her copy of the book, adding: "I hope the new Action Cook Book is a huge hit, and that a whole new generation of bachelors learn how to do truites à la meunière and sole bercy, thus making the lives of their future partners a lot more lovely." An entertaining little article, and we can expect to hear more about Len's impact on the world of cooking when the book comes out.

Saving the good old British thriller?

A new group of British authors has been formed to save the classic British thriller from what it calls the 'production line' of modern american thriller fiction. The Curzon Group is the idea of Matt Lynn, Martin Baker and Alan Clements, who are concerned that the methods of Dan Brown, James Paterson and their ilk are draining the creativity from the thriller genre. They wish to see a return to the values that made British thrillers world leaders. Lynn says: "Look at Fleming, look at Len Deighton – they had a quirkiness to them. Yes they were very popular, and had elements of the formulaic, but there was an edge of originality to them."

The Curzon Group has given itself five key principles:

1. That the first duty of any book is to entertain.
2. That a book should reflect the world around it.
3. That thrilling, popular fiction doesn’t follow formulas.
4. That every story should be an adventure for both the writer and the reader.
5. That stylish, witty, and insightful writing can be combined with edge-of-the seat excitement.

It's a noble thought. But does British thriller writing need 'saving'?

The Deighton Dossier - now new and improved

The new, improved, version 2.0 Deighton Dossier website is now loaded up here, at the usual url.

Tell me what you think of it. There are lots more pages, more images, more .pdfs to view and download, and more new information not on the previous website.

Is Harry Palmer coming back?

I've just found this news item popped up on MTV's website. Sir Michael Caine has indicated that he thinks young(ish) British actor Jude Law should be playing Harry Palmer in any future remake of the classic Deighton films from the sixties. He seems to think the timing is right for remakes, but there's no evidence that this is anything more than wishful thinking - I've certainly not heard anything from Deighton's publishers or seen anything else about this suggestion elsewhere. Caine also wants to see Yesterday's Spy made into a film as part of any move to getting remakes off the blocks. It is one of Deighton's more stylish stories, set in Paris, and is ripe for filming.

If not Jude Law, then who else do people think could play the 'new' Harry Palmer? I think Jude Law is a good actor, and he does have form as a 'cockney Caine', having reprised Caine's role as Alfie a few years ago. The big question is, Palmer is so obviously linked to the sixties Britain - would you get the sense sense of class tension and blokey humour between Palmer and his colleagues in a modern setting; and would any producer rewrite the stories for a modern age, or go back to the Cold War setting? Interesting idea, though.

Good news for Harry Palmer fans

On 20 April there is a release of a double box set of the two final Harry Palmer films starring Michael Caine: Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg. While not a patch on the sixties originals, they do address the question of what a former spy does when the Cold War ends. In Palmer's case, it's start his own intelligence agency in Moscow! DVDs are available for pre-order now through Amazon.

New Deighton book....well, almost

Click here to find out more about a new book by Irish author Brendan Lynch, called Yesterday We Were in America, which highlights the tale of aviation pioneers Alcock and Brown, who were the first to fly across the Atlantic. Len Deighton writes the forward, in which he says: “Brendan Lynch, in this excellent book, tells their story with the skill of a dedicated researcher and the talent of a popular novelist. Yesterday We Were in America is a very fine book; I only wish I had written it.”

Driving Len Deighton

I've just managed to get hold of a Sunday Times magazine from April 14 1963 featuring an article by Len Deighton on Supercar Motoring (find the article and the links to it on my Deighton Dossier main website).

Flushed with the critical and financial success of The Ipcress File, Len Deighton was someone who clearly liked to be in the cutting edge of the latest technological developments. In 1963, that meant short-wave in-car radio phones and in-car phonographs (record players!). A fascinating insight into how far we've come, technology-wise, in the last forty years. The uses of new technology in changing the world of work is something which features in a number of his stories.

Deighton returns to the airwaves...and the bookshelves

The 80th birthday of thriller writer Len Deighton is to be commemorated in a radio programme to be broadcast on Radio 4 on 26 May, I've just learned via the BookBrunch website. The programme is to be written and presented by Patrick Humphries. This good news for fans follows on from the news earlier in February that there is also to be a worldwide re-issue programme of Deighton's novels.

The notoriously reclusive Deighton, who turned 80 last month, talked to Humphries for two hours about his life, and a writing career stretching back to 1962 and the publication of The Ipcress File, which changed the face of spy fiction and went on to make a successful transfer to the big screen - the first and arguably best of Michael Caine's Harry Palmer outings. Contributors to the programme include food writer Henrietta Green, talking about Deighton’s Action Cook Book, which Fourth Estate will reissue in May with a new introduction, and historian Sir Max Hastings, who speaks about Deighton’s non-fiction work, such as Fighter and Blitzkrieg.

The story also suggests a TV remake of the Game, Set and Match Trilogy (not just a reissuing of the 1988 ITV series, which Deighton disliked) and a new book, The Anatomy of a Fountain Pen, which will be of a limited print run. The latter is interesting news, but all I have at the moment is an intriguing title.

More exciting, though, is the great news about Game Set and Match; it will be interesting to hear how the two compare, and also how the producers recreate cold war Berlin now that most of the wall has gone! Another factor will be the budget; will it allow for sufficient locations and CGI to recreate cold war Berlin. The timing is propitious, with November being the 20th anniversary of the fall of 'die Mauer'.

Of course, keep linking to this blog as more news arises.

The secret gourmet

This interesting restaurant review in The Evening Standard quotes Len Deighton as one of the verifiable sixties 'restaurant hounds' who were known for their love of good food an modern cuisine in the swinging sixties 'scene' in London.

Referring to the growth of Italian resturant chic in London in the sixties, the article says: "Len Deighton, in those days an illustrator, was an early customer [of La Trattoria Terazza], introduced by his agent, who organised a bill-signing facility for his client. Other artists and designers were also allowed accounts, photographers brought models, showbiz correspondents brought Hollywood stars and that sine qua non of a restaurant’s arrival, the presence of Princess Margaret, was achieved. Deighton makes the point that at the time London’s grand hotels were turning away a surplus of skilled applicants for kitchen and waiting duties who were anxious to improve their English."

Of course, one of the lesser-known (now, at least) aspects of Deighton's career is that in the sixties he was as known for his writing on food and gourmet cooking as he was for his thrillers, and was well known on the party circuit of the great and the good for his dinner parties. His Action Cook Book and his writing on French cuisine - as well as his innovative cookstrips for The Observer newspaper which were an entry point for many to the world of French cooking which, in sixties London with its Lyons Coffee Houses and its Brown Windsor Soup as the apogee of cooking, were a revelation.

Len Deighton Fan in Hammersmith Palais

Interesting little snippet from the rock and culture magazine Word.

The link here is to a photo on the magazine's website of the lock-up of Mick Jones, ertswhile guitarist with The Clash. You're challenged to find a number of things in the photograph, including..."A copy of Len Deighton's 1981 novel XPD". Good choice, that man.

Can you find it?

Who's laughing now?

Only When I Larf was Deighton's six book, and the first to depart from the spy fiction genre. It deals with the tale of three con artists - Bob, Silas and Liz - who make their way in life scamming the naive and the innocent and build their way up from financial scams to unsuccessfully ripping off the arms minister of a failed African state before trying one last blag on an unscrupulous banker financier, with unforeseen results.

This book came out in the UK in 1968, but didn't come out in the USA until 1986. Deighton decided to pursue the film version of the book - which starred Richard Attenborough - in 1968 as his production company - set up to film Oh! What a Lovely War - had a pause in the production schedule and, frankly, needed some money coming in! The film itself is fine, but the book didn't find a publisher in the US at the time of the film's release - despite great efforts by Len, he writes in the foreword to the US edition (marketed as Only When I Laugh for US audiences), which didn't appear until 18 years later.

I've just managed to get hold of one copy of only 150 special trade editions produced to mark this belated US publication, and it's signed by Len himself, so it's quite a find. In the new foreword to this edition, Len recounts how the serialisation rights were turned down by Playboy as they had an editorial policy of not running stories "where women outwit men". Couldn't get away with that now!

In appreciation of Len Deighton

This is the first posting on this blog, and comes shortly after Len Deighton celebrated his 80th birthday on 18th February. I'm a huge fan of Len's work - books and films adapted from them - and last year I set up a website, The Deighton Dossier, which is currently the most comprehensive - and only regularly updated - website devoted to his work. I did it primarily in response to the fact that, in comparison to Ian Fleming's Bond - about which there are hundreds of websites - the stories and characters created by Deighton are very under-represented.

Len's 80th birthday provides an opportunity to bring him back out of the cold, so to speak, as he enjoys his retirement in Portugal and Guernsey (he's not lived in the UK for over forty years). As part of that celebration, Shots, the online magazine for thriller and spy fiction has created a special Len Deighton Appreciation on their website....and asked me to provide a fan's perspective on why his work continues to appeal to fiction fans across the globe.