Features

CIS: Len Deighton's The Ipcress File revisited

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Len Deighton’s first spy novel, released in 1962 at height of the Cold War, has largely slid away from the crime-reading public’s eye. Published at around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Ipcress File details the mutual paranoia and distrust that characterised relations…
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Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz

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Having interviewed Anthony Horowitz elsewhere and learned of his passion for the works of Ian Fleming – as well as glimpsing his collection of first editions – he seemed to me the perfect candidate to write an official James Bond continuation novel. In recent years…
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Features

A classic revisited: Call for the Dead

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For 53 years, David Cornwell has been publishing under his pseudonym John le Carré. He originally adopted the name because he was writing about fictional spies while toiling in his day job for the British Intelligence Service. Such literary excursions probably wouldn’t be allowed today….
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Book Club

The Girl in Berlin

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It’s summer 1951 and London is feeling the downbeat mood of austerity. Jack McGovern is a detective with Special Branch. High level British diplomats have defected to the Russians and he’s told to investigate Colin Harris, a British communist who has recently returned from East…
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