Len Deighton

The first novel in the Bernard Samson series is a dazzling return to Deighton’s world of Cold War espionage. Embattled agent Bernard Samson is used to being passed over for promotion as his younger, more ambitious colleagues—including his own wife Fiona—rise up the ranks of MI6. When a valued agent in East Berlin warns the British of a mole at...

The story of one Allied air raid over twenty-four hours remains one of the finest British war novels. 31 June, 1943. An RAF crew prepare for their next bombing raid on Germany. It is a night that many will never forget. Len Deighton's devastating novel is a gripping minute-by-minute account of what happens over the next twenty-four hours. Told through...

The final novel featuring Bernard Samson, one of Deighton's most enduring characters, who must return to Berlin for one last case. Bernard Samson returns to Berlin in the final novel in the classic spy trilogy, Faith, Hope and Charity. Bernard continues to chip away at the mystery of his sister-in-law Tessa Kosinski's death in Berlin on the crucial night when...

The race is on to find a German agent, hiding somewhere in the maze of wartime Cairo. January 1942. Rommel's seemingly invincible Afrika Korps is at the gates of Egypt – perhaps soon to threaten Cairo itself. And Rommel has a spy in the city – a source so well-informed that the German commander knows in advance every movement of...

The first novel in the celebrated Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy finds Bernard Samson in rural Germany, trying to deliver a Russian defector to London Central. Bernard Samson returns to Berlin in the first novel in the classic spy trilogy, Faith, Hope and Charity. Bernard has known that he is not getting the full picture from London Central ever since...

A myth-busting, page-turning history of the Battle of Britain History is swamped by patriotic myths about the aerial combat fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over the summer of 1940. In his gripping history of the Battle of Britain, Len Deighton drew on a decade of research and his own wartime experiences to puncture these myths and point towards...

Funeral in Berlin is a vintage spy thriller and part of The IPCRESS File series, where a Russian scientist defects to the West. The setting is the dark and dangerous Berlin of 1963. The anonymous hero of The IPCRESS File is tasked with arranging the defection of a leading Soviet scientist, orchestrated through an elaborate mock coffin. However, he quickly...

Hope by Len Deighton immerses Bernard Samson in the complicated dissolution of the USSR in the second novel of the Faith, Hope, Charity trilogy. Bernard Samson makes his return to Berlin in this instalment of the classic spy trilogy, Faith, Hope, and Charity. In this narrative, Bernard is striving to readjust his life amidst uncertainties regarding his wife Fiona and...

The unnamed spy of The IPCRESS File uncovers a secret buried deep in a Nazi U-Boat. A sunken U-Boat has lain undisturbed on the Atlantic ocean floor since the Second World War—until now. Inside its rusting hull, among the corpses of top-rank Nazis, lie secrets people will kill to obtain. The sequel to Len Deighton's game-changing debut The IPCRESS File,...

London Match by Len Deighton sees Bernard Samson becoming a pawn in a game played by the Kremlin in the final instalment of the Game, Set and Match trilogy. Long-suffering spy Bernard Samson has, against all the odds, enticed a Soviet agent to defect to London—but this proves to be the start of something even bigger. He learns that there...

The second novel in the Game, Set and Match trilogy is a gripping study in the art of spy enrolment. World-weary agent Bernard Samson is losing control of his personal and professional life. Sent to Mexico to aid the defection of a KGB agent to the West, he has a chance to prove his worth. Instead, he is torn between...

Spy Hook introduces us to Bernard Samson, a spy forced on the run from his own government in this nail-biting first instalment of the Hook, Line and Sinker series. Millions of pounds have gone missing, and the Department has sent agent Bernard Samson to Washington to track them down. But this mission is just the start of something far deeper...

The second book of the Hook, Line and Sinker series finds Bernard Samson on the run through Berlin, Vienna and Prague. Bernard Samson is a spy on the run. But in the murky streets of Berlin, he knows where to hide. Wanted for an act of treachery he has not committed, he must not only escape the grasp of London...

A new narrator provides some long-awaited answers to the Bernard Samson mystery in the final novel of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy. Of all the mysteries Bernard Samson has encountered, the greatest is his wife Fiona. Dedicated agent of the Service and a woman of secrets, she will risk everything to play the long game. As the truth about...

SS-GB offers a chilling alternative history of the Second World War, in which the Nazis have conquered Britain. It is 1941, and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill has been executed, and the King is imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down....

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, now adapted into a major new ITV series. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. With its sardonic, cool,...

Len Deighton's best-selling first spy novel, which revolutionised the genre, is now published in Penguin Classics for the first time. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped. A secret British intelligence agency must find out why. But as the quarry is pursued from grimy Soho to the other side of the world, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far...

A sweeping portrait of one Berlin family, spanning generations and two world wars. Peter and Paul, the two sons of German businessman Harald Winter, are bonded together by a childhood trauma. But as they grow up, the brothers also grow apart. When the shadow of the Third Reich falls, they become divided by war and their differing ideals—only to meet...

SS-GB is a chilling alternative history in which the Nazis have conquered Britain, now featured in the iconic Penguin Crime series. It is 1941, and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed, and the King imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down....

An unnamed spy is entangled in Paris's seedy underworld in a rollercoaster Cold War thriller. An Expensive Place to Die transports readers to Paris in the 1960s, a city that caters to every taste, especially at the private 'clinic' run by the enigmatic Monsieur Datt on Avenue Foch. This clinic supplies psychedelic drugs and sexual favours to the city's elite,...

A riveting history of the Nazi conquest of Western Europe This is the story of the Nazi conquest of western Europe, from Hitler's rise to power and 'lightning-fast war', to his fatal mistake in halting the German advance on Dunkirk in 1940. Drawing on technical mastery and interviews with both Allied and German participants, Blitzkrieg sets out the technical thinking...

An action-packed Cold War thriller set in the deserts of North Africa. 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 trail across three continents... Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy reveals...

Alternate history meets Cold War thriller in a vintage Len Deighton escapade. XPD begins on 11 June, 1940 - where is Winston Churchill? A private aircraft takes off from a small town in central France, while Adolf Hitler, the would-be conqueror of Europe, prepares for a clandestine meeting near the Belgian border. For more than forty years, the events of...

A magisterial history of the Second World War by best-selling novelist and former RAF pilot Len Deighton. This unflinching history of the darkest days of the Second World War covers the entire world stage, from the Battle of the Atlantic to Pearl Harbor. Rooted in the personal accounts of the soldiers themselves, Blood, Tears and Folly is a sweeping, moving...

A classic Cold War thriller featuring computer hacking, nuclear submarines, and violence on the Arctic ice. Computer games run in a classified war studies centre in London. Nuclear submarines prowl beneath Arctic ice. And war games go into real time. Patrick Armstrong—possibly the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File—is sent to investigate. Patrick Armstrong is a tough, dedicated agent...

The final spy novel featuring the unnamed hero of The IPCRESS File series finds him up against a Texan billionaire with an all-powerful computer. Texan billionaire General Midwinter will stop at nothing to bring down the USSR—even if it puts the whole world at risk. The fourth and final novel featuring the cynical, insolent narrator of The IPCRESS File sees...

Only When I Larf is a comedy thriller about three New York con artists whose biggest heist goes awry. The three confidence tricksters 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 rich and the living was easy. And Liz, Silas'...

A meticulously detailed and moving novel explores the lives of American fighter pilots in World War Two. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4. At the centre of the novel are two young men — the deeply reserved...

Declarations of War is Len Deighton's only collection of short stories, examining the experiences of soldiers across two millennia of war. This collection of thirteen stories offers an inside view of fighting men poised at the edge of death. It is a dazzling array of stories that spans twenty-three centuries of warfare. From Hannibal's march on Rome—when strange, moving objects...

The Cold War plays out in the shadow of the Second World War as old loyalties collide. Sinister rumours link clandestine Arab arms dealing with a hero of the French resistance. Time to re-open the master file on Yesterday's Spy...

A hard-nosed criminal lawyer gets caught up in a murder in a classic LA thriller. If America is a lunatic asylum, then California is the Violent Ward. Mickey Murphy is a criminal lawyer with an office in LA's downtown low-rent district, an ex-wife who bleeds him for money, and 'clients who would plead the Fifth Amendment if they could count...

MAMista is a dramatic departure for Len Deighton, taking readers to the jungles of Spanish Guyana where Marxist revolutionaries are fighting for their lives. Deep in Marxist Guerrilla territory, a hopeless war is being fought. The Berlin Wall is demolished. Marx is dead. Try telling that to Ramon and his desperate men hiding in the jungle, cradling their AK 47s,...