As a boy Len Deighton saw enemy planes in the London skies. It was the era of total war and the effect on the lives of the population must have ranged from restricting through to devastating. Later, Deighton was enthused to study the prosecution of the Second World War by writing insightful histories, analysing the successes and failures of both sides in the conflict; particularly, the shortcomings in organisation and leadership. These works were interspersed between the fictional spy thrillers. But it is not often realised that his insights into the war informed those novels of intrigue. The cunning of a perceptive working class young man in the Palmer novels are a refreshing counter to the Sandhurst or Oxbridge selected staff running intelligence from self-serving hierarchies, often shrouded in secrecy. The “old boy network” is even more obvious in the latter spy novels. Finding capable, trustworthy field agents to assess Intel is difficult if prep school and Latin is their upbringing. In contrast Deighton shows the less fortunate operatives caught up in the machinations of SIS. This realism and tragedy reflects back on the author’s understanding of the war.

In Deighton’s most ambitious work, beginning with an overarching concept of three novels, Game, Set and Match at the apex of the Cold War, the anti-hero Bernard Sampson, is an anti-Establishment player. He did not attend

Balliol or indeed any university, but was brought up in the most devastated city of all – Berlin. There his father, head of Berlin Station, nurtured him into SIS. Now middle-aged but with all the requisite skills he is sent to Berlin to find the source of a network leak. He finds hustlers and schemers and a kind of black market. They tell him, in various ways, about the unfairness of the system. Then the intrigue turns to London Centre, one of ours is working for the Russians. There were two more trilogies with Sampson and the other cast. Each book is purposely designed to reveal different sides to the main characters. But it is Sampson, and his troubles with kin and country that drives the story. Ultimately he saw two competing world systems – and they seemed to share the almost identical class of bureaucrats. Perhaps the war had brought it all about.

In 1988 a television adaptation of Game, Set and Match appeared with Ian Holm as the lead. Another production of all nine books is being developed. It remains a favourite as both an outstanding book and film. This first edition is one of 15 lettered copies signed by Len Deighton.

The above text is from the Introduction, approved and signed by Len Deighton. It comes with a photo of Ian Holm as Bernard Sampson and Amanda Donohoe as the blonde Gloria.