Authors: Len Deighton

Yesterday's Spy (30 page)

BOOK: Yesterday's Spy

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Readers who have been faithfully building their collection of these reissues will by now have become familiar with my use of a linking motif on the spines of the books. Being the final foursome in the entire series of reissues, and books in which violence is never too far away, I thought it a good idea to âgo out with a bang', as it were. This quartet's spines accordingly display a different handgun, as mentioned in each of the books' texts. The example here is a Luger âParabellum', a well-known German sidearm that was popular with all branches of their military but would have fallen out of use by the time of this story. Its appearance here is to reinforce the idea that âyesterday's spy' was in action during a time that pre-dates the action in this book.

Another recurring feature in this quartet, to be found within each back cover's photographic montage, is a pair of âour hero's' glasses, which look suspiciously like those worn by âHarry Palmer' in
The Ipcress File
and other outingsâ¦

A small collection of postcards reflect the various locations that the story takes us: from London to Vichy France to Egypt, as Charlie sets out to track down Steve Champion. A luggage label from the Cairo Hilton Hotel, a British Intelligence Corps, cap badge, plus a souvenir medallion commemorating the 1929 âAround the World' flight of the Graf Zeppelin offer clues to the history of the elusive Mr Champion, and all these objects sit on a coded silk handkerchief. What is the message contained within the handkerchief? Well, that's a secretâ¦

Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI

Hollywood 2012

About the Author

Len Deighton was born in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch.

After his discharge in 1949, he went to art school â first to the St Martin's School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art on a scholarship. His mother was a professional cook and he grew up with an interest in cookery â a subject he was later to make his own in an animated strip for the
Observer
and in two cookery books. He worked for a while as an illustrator in New York and as art director of an advertising agency in London.

Deciding it was time to settle down, Deighton moved to the Dordogne where he started work on his first book,
The Ipcress File
. Published in 1962, the book was an immediate success.

Since then his work has gone from strength to strength, varying from espionage novels to war, general fiction and non-fiction. The BBC made
Bomber
into a day-long radio drama in âreal time'. Deighton's history of World War Two,
Blood, Tears and Foll
y, was published to wide acclaim â Jack Higgins called it âan absolute landmark'.

As Max Hastings observed, Deighton captured a time and a mood â âTo those of us who were in our twenties in the 1960s, his books seemed the coolest, funkiest, most sophisticated things we'd ever read' â and his books have now deservedly become classics.

By Len Deighton

FICTION

The Ipcress File

Horse Under Water

Funeral in Berlin

Billion-Dollar Brain

An Expensive Place to Die

Only When I Larf

Bomber

Declarations of War

Close-Up

Spy Story

Yesterday's Spy

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

SS-GB

XPD

Goodbye Mickey Mouse

MAMista

City of Gold

Violent Ward

THE SAMSON SERIES

Berlin Game

Mexico Set

London Match

Winter: The Tragic Story of a Berlin Family 1899â1945

Spy Hook

Spy Line

Spy Sinker

Faith

Hope

Charity

NON-FICTION

Action Cook Book

Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain

Airshipwreck

French Cooking for Men

Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk

ABC of French Food

Blood, Tears and Folly

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77â85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1975

Introduction copyright Â© Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2012

Cover designer's note Â© Arnold Schwartzman 2012

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

EPub Edition Â© June 2012 ISBN: 978 0 00 745841 7

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