Len Deighton è celebre per i suoi avvincenti thriller di spionaggio, che spesso approfondiscono le ambiguità morali e le profondità psicologiche dei suoi personaggi. La sua scrittura è caratterizzata da dettagli meticolosamente ricercati e da una rappresentazione realistica del mondo dell'intelligence, offrendo ai lettori uno sguardo autentico sullo spionaggio. Deighton crea trame intricate con colpi di scena inaspettati che tengono i lettori con il fiato sospeso. Il suo lavoro attinge frequentemente alle sue esperienze personali e alla sua fascinazione per la storia militare, conferendo alle sue narrazioni un ulteriore livello di veridicità e intuizione.
In una grigia Berlino, ancora dolorosamente divisa dal Muro, Bernard Samsonsta vivendo un momento estremamente difficile: l'affascinante moglie Fiona -agente segreto come lui - è passata ai russi lasciandolo con due figli piccolie una reputazione compromessa. Solo un colpo magistrale può capovolgere lasituazione e salvare Bernard Samson.
East is East and West is West - and they meet in Berlin He was the best source the Department ever had, but now he desperately wants to come over the wall. 'Brahms Four' was certain a high-ranking mole was set to betray him. There's only one Englishman he trusts any more: someone from the old days. So, Bernie Samson goes back into the field after five sedentary years of flying a desk The field is Berlin The game is as baffling, treacherous and lethal as ever....
Cosa sarebbe successo se i tedeschi, nel 1941 fossero riusciti a invadere l'Inghilterra e a sconfiggerla? In una Londra livida e spettrale, dove Scotland Yard è guidata da un generale delle SS e la Gestapo tesse le sue reti mortali, una normale indagine su un omicidio rivela un misterioso caso carico di implicazioni sconvolgenti. Un gioco delle parti nella tradizione delle spy-stories, in una Inghilterra occupata dai nazisti resa con verismo, mescolando storia e fantasia in un nodo indistricabile.
This compelling autobiography offers a dramatic description of one man's truly extraordinary life. It radiates outwards from the Second World War in which Dutchman Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema served as a secret agent with the Special Operations Executive, a bomber pilot with the RAF's elite Pathfinder Force, and after receiving the Dutch equivalent of the Victoria Cross, as aide and confidante to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. His adventures after the war were no less turbulent and spanned the globe - from sales clerk and actor in Hollywood to blockade runner off New Guinea; vice-president of NBC to bum in New York's Central Park; Director of Radio Free Europe for the CIA to oil prospector in Israel - and above all, a writer.
'I am going to cook you the best meal you have ever tasted in your life...'
Harry Palmer to Sue Lloyd in `The Ipcress Files''Len was a great cook, a
smashing cook. I learned a lot about food from playing Harry Palmer' Michael
Caine
"Berlin Game begins with a plea from a British agent stationed in East Germany: He wants to cross the Iron Curtain and return home to the West. Bernard Samson, the former field agent now stationed behind a London desk, is tasked with the rescue. But before he even sets out on the mission, suspicions arise that there is a traitor among his colleagues in the KGB, likely one of his closest colleagues. The first in Deighton's acclaimed Game, Set, Match trilogy starring the talented-yet-jaded intelligence officer Bernard Samson, Berlin Game is a riveting story of betrayal and suspicion in the Second World War"--
Set during a pivotal bombing raid over Germany in 1943, the narrative unfolds over a tense twenty-four hours, capturing the harrowing experiences of an RAF bomber crew, a Luftwaffe night fighter pilot, and a young German boy. Through their intertwined perspectives, the story offers a profound exploration of the realities of war, highlighting the emotional and psychological impacts on individuals across both sides of the conflict. This unique approach provides an intimate and multifaceted portrayal of the chaos of wartime.
Spy Sinker is a 1990 spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the final novel in the second of three trilogies about Bernard Samson, a middle-aged and somewhat jaded intelligence officer working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Spy Sinker is part of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy, being preceded by Spy Hook and Spy Line. This trilogy is preceded by the Game, Set and Match trilogy and followed by the final Faith, Hope and Charity trilogy. Deighton's novel Winter (1987) is a prequel to the nine novels, covering the years 1900-1945 and providing the backstory to some of the characters.
Despite the volumes written about World War II, many questions remain un-answered. In this balanced and thoughtful chronicle, historian and World War II expert Len Deighton dares to explore intriguing questions, including why the British weren't more prepared for the Blitz and why Hitler failed to thoroughly support his U-boat program. He also warns that we haven't yet learned the lessons of World War II, as ethnic cleansing, Middle East violence, and the widening gap between rich and poor still plague the world.
The prelude to the classic spy trilogy, Game, Set and Match, that follows the fortunes of a German dynasty during two world wars. Winter takes us into a large and complex family drama, into the lives of two German brothers - both born close upon the turn of the century, both so caught up in the currents of history that their story is one with the story of their country, from the Kaiser's heyday through Hitler's rise and fall. A novel that rings powerfully true, a rich and remarkable portrait of Germany in the first half of the twentieth century
For Bernard Samson, the end is near.In the concluding volume of Len Deighton's superb trilogy that began with Faith and Hope, Bernard Samson continues to peel away the mystery surrounding the cold-blooded murder of his sister-in-law, Tessa, on the streets of Berlin. Although his wife, Fiona, has come back from the cold and is now in the West, his family is in tatters, and Samson has no where to turn for answers. Only his childhood friend Werner Volkman seems to offer the charity that Samson craves, but Volkmann is reluctant to get involved with any quest for the truth, no matter who is doing the asking. And as always, hovering above all Samson does and tries to be is the persistent memory of his father -- a deadly force to be reckoned with, even now.Deighton's back and better than ever. Packed with action, incident and intrigue, Charity brings to a triumphant conclusion a series of 10 novels that represents one of the greatest achievements in modern fiction.
Bernard Sampson, survivor and spy epy extraordinaire, the star of Len Deighton's two previous bestselling trilogies--Game, Set and Match and Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker--is back in the dazzling new series: Faith, Hope and Charity. Using as a backdrop the months before the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Eastern Bloc dissolved, Deighton vividly paints the shadowy world of spies and moles, agents and double agents pitted in which physical violence is only the beginning.
Takes up the story where the "Hook, Line and Sinker" trilogy ended. It is 1987 and Bernard has flown from California to Magdeburg and the guarded sanctum of the secret police apparatus. He soon he finds himself in a shoot-out with Stasi agents on a dark country road in East Germany.
Len Deighton brings to bear all the skills of a best-selling novelist in this compelling study.In Blitzkrieg, Len Deighton turns a searchlight on the rise of Hitler, the lightning dash of his armies to the Channel coast in 1940 and on the debacle of Dunkirk, where — in a mistake that was to trigger his eventual downfall — a quarter of a million British troops were allowed to escape.
British agent Bernard Samson finds himself inexplicably hunted as a traitor, forced to abandon his life, his job, his position, and plunge into hiding in the most dangerous and darkest corner of Berlin. What is happening? What has he done? Nothing makes sense until Samson discovers that the Secret Service has known all along where he is. In fact, they have never taken him off the payroll. And now they are prepared to return his freedom and good name -- but there are strings attached, strings that begin to tighten around his neck even before his plane lands in Vienna . . .
Sinister rumors link clandestine Arab arms dealing with the man who led the old anti-Nazi Guernica network. It's time to re-open the master file on yesterday's spy...
A ferociously cool Cold War thriller from the author of The Ipcress File. Len Deighton's third novel has become a classic, as compelling and suspenseful now as when it first exploded on to the bestseller lists. In Berlin, where neither side of the wall is safe, Colonel Stok of Red Army Security is prepared to sell an important Russian scientist to the West - for a price. British intelligence are willing to pay, providing their own top secret agent is in Berlin to act as go-between. But it soon becomes apparent that behind the facade of an elaborate mock funeral lies a game of deadly manoeuvres and ruthless tactics. A game in which the blood-stained legacy of Nazi Germany is enmeshed in the intricate moves of cold war espionage...
The third novel in Deighton's Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy. Spanning a ten year period (1977-87), Deighton solves the mystery of Fiona's defection - was she a Soviet spy or wasn't she? He also retells some of the events from the Game, Set and Match trilogy from Fiona's point of view.
A novel about a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4. The story centres on two young men who forge a bond of friendship in battle, with far-reaching consequences for themselves, and for the future of those they love.
Deighton draws on his personal experience of the cut-throat Hollywood film industry in this dark and compelling thriller Deighton's incendiary novel of the film industry uncovers a Hollywood Babylon for our time. Marshall Stone, international superstar and charismatic member of Hollywood's elite. Abundantly blessed with charm, genius and wealth, the one gift he most desires - everlasting youth - seems within his grasp when an eminent writer begins the star's biography. But painful memories and suppressed scandals threaten to expose the fiction of his life. Dazzled by flattery and numbed by threats, the biographer is caught up in the big-daddy world where books are properties, films are investments, ratings are rigged, and stars and directors are bought and sold like slaves at an auction. The rituals, the wheeler-dealing politics, and back-stabbing tactics of the richest industry in the world have never been more effectively portrayed. And at the heart of this glittering machine, a brilliant star who will do almost anything to remain untarnished.
US Secret Service high-up Colonel Mann is the main foil to the British agent in this story, which is set in the Arab world and the wastes of the north African Sahara desert, where our hero is sent to take custody of a defecting Russian scientist, Professor Bekuv. The narrator is unnamed. Things don’t go according to plan in this story. Loyalty is tested and never certain, as it becomes unclear as the novel develops who is actually chasing whom, and where the threat is coming from.
Here in the Horse underwater, skin-diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which the dead hand of a long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today.
A hard-boiled Los Angeles criminal lawyer copes with a son in trouble, a passion for his biggest client's wife, and cops who want to pin a murder on him.
The long-awaited reissue of the first part of the classic spy trilogy, HOOK, LINE and SINKER, when the Berlin Wall divided not just a city but a world. Working for the Department was like marriage is supposed to be - ''til death do us part' - but the Department is really not like that; and neither are many marriages, including that of Bernard Samson. The cool and cynical field agent of the GAME, SET and MATCH trilogy has grown older and wiser. But things have not gone well for Samson: old pals are not as friendly as they used to be and colleagues are less confiding than they once were. Now, starting with his mission to Washington, life has become even more precarious for Bernard. Ignoring all warnings, friendly, devious and otherwise, he pursues his own investigation and, in California, meets with the biggest surprise of his life…
This novel is constructed around the supposition that Winston Churchill secretly met with Adolf Hitler in 1940 to discuss the terms of a British surrender. Forty years later, Hitler's personal minutes of the discussions are threatening to surface.
A collection of thirteen stories that offer an inside view of fighting men poised at the edge of death. Len Deighton's only collection of shorter fiction, this dazzling array of stories spans twenty-three centuries of warfare. From Hannibal's march on Rome - when strange, moving objects terrorise the troops of one of the toughest and most skilful armies in history - to the efforts of a belittled Civil War general to get his men to face the Confederate army; to the dawn skies above an artillery-blasted French battle-line where a dogfight unfolds, to Vietnam; where two lost American soldiers stumble across an abandoned military airfield. Each story in Declarations of War explores the effects of war upon man's character, how it pushes him to act in a dehumanized, machine-like way, often leading to extraordinary deeds, both good and ill. It portrays human conflict through a series of devastating experiences and shows how great deeds are often but the smallest thread in the large fabric of war.
An attempted murder, the defection of a highly placed KGB official, and an explosive nuclear submarine chase beneath the Arctic Ocean seem to have little connection to one another. But they are the sparks that propel Pat Armstrong -- also known as Harry Palmer -- into the heart of a brutal East-West power play. And when Armstrong returns to his own apartment -- where someone who looks and dresses just like him has taken up his identity -- we are drawn into the world of spies and counterspies, plots and counterplots, that is Len Deighton's unbeatable trademark.
This is the thrilling story of an anti-communist espionage network owned by a Texan billionaire, General Midwinter, run from a vast computer complex known as the Brain.
The Inside Story of the World-Famous Fighting Force
212pagine
8 ore di lettura
The French Foreign Legion, founded in 1831, has captivated the world with its mystique and heroism. Today's Legionnaires are heirs to a legacy of adventurers known for their military feats across Europe, Mexico, Africa, and Southeast Asia, embodying danger, endurance, and camaraderie. John Robert Young pulls back the curtain on the Legion's inner workings through his photography, capturing the essence of Legionnaires' lives across fifty thousand miles and three hundred rolls of film. Erwan Bergot, a veteran of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, enriches the narrative with a history of the Legion's triumphs and tragedies, from its origins in Algeria to its peacekeeping efforts in Beirut, complemented by rare illustrations from the Legion's archives. Additionally, a comprehensive reference section offers insights into the Legion's regiments, their histories, battle honors, and current duties, along with details on uniforms, customs, and the diverse backgrounds of the 600,000 men who have served. It even highlights notable former Legionnaires, including Cole Porter and the King of Serbia. This work presents a complete picture of the French Foreign Legion—unmatched, unique, and utterly fascinating.
Un biglietto cifrato è il primo indizio. Recapitato a Sherlock Holmes e Watson, reca la firma di Porlock, nom-de-plume dietro il quale si nasconde una nuova sfida per il detective di Baker Street. Risolta la crittografia, la verità è agghiacciante: l'uomo che vi è nominato, il signor Douglas di Birlstone Manor House, è stato appena assassinato. Chi è l'autore del biglietto e che ruolo ha avuto nell'omicidio? Comincia così un'avventura che porterà Holmes, sempre affiancato dal dottor Watson, dalla compassata Londra vittoriana all'America degli ultimi pionieri e dei primi gangster, sulle tracce del più acerrimo nemico: il professor Moriarty. "La Valle della Paura" (1915) è l'ultimo dei romanzi di Conan Doyle che hanno per protagonista il celebre investigatore, la cui fama sembra destinata a non tramontare mai. Ne sono la prova le innumerevoli trasposizioni cinematografiche, anche recentissime, come i due film diretti da Guy Ritchie e interpretati da Robert Downey Jr. e Jude Law.
An unnamed spy - perhaps the same reluctant hero of The Ipcress File - is sent to Paris to deliver a file of nuclear secrets to a French doctor, but soon finds himself sucked into a twilight world of sex, blackmail and hidden motive, where friend and enemy become indistinguishable.
The three confidence tricksters - two blokes and a bird - 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' mistress, was! in between. Theirs was a built-in love triangle with its own rewards! and its own dangers. In New York these con-artists do a 'business deal' worth millions. But back in London Silas' plan to bilk an emergent African nation misfires. Then Bob takes over the running of the operation -- and Liz. A Beirut bank is their target and each member of the trio gets what he or she deserves -- each with a twist of lemon.
Len Deighton s classic first novel, whose protagonist is a nameless spy later christened Harry Palmer and made famous worldwide in the iconic 1960s film starring Michael Caine. The Ipcress File was not only Len Deighton s first novel, it was his first bestseller and the book that broke the mould of thriller writing. For the working class narrator, an apparently straightforward mission to find a missing biochemist becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy. The film of The Ipcress File gave Michael Caine one of his first and still most celebrated starring roles, while the novel itself has become a classic."
January 1942. Rommel’s seemingly invincible Afrika Korps is at the gates of Egypt – perhaps soon to threaten Cairo itself. Rommel has a spy in the city – a source so well-informed that the German commander knows in advance every movement of the allied forces. Amongst the teeming streets and bazaars, the British, led by Major Albert Cutler, must find him. But Cairo is a city of fool’s gold, where nothing and nobody, not even Cutler, can be taken at face value…
Leden 1942. Rommelův zdánlivě neporazitelný Afrika Korps stojí před branami Egypta, brzy bude ohrožena sama Káhira. Rommel má ve městě špióna – tak dobře informovaný pramen, že německý velitel ví o každém pohybu Spojenců ještě dřív, než k němu dojde. Britové ho pod vedením majora Alberta Cutlera musí odhalit co nejdříve. Káhira je však město kočičího zlata, kde se nelze spolehnout na pravost ničeho, dokonce ani Cutlera samého...... celý text
Román o bombardéru, pilotech a bombardovací peruti. Jde o fiktivní dílo, psané jako skutečné události o bombardování území obsazeného Hitlerovým Německem.
Een Britse geheim agent, wiens echtgenote naar de Russische inlichtingendienst is overgelopen, weet een gedeserteerde Russische spion naar Londen te brengen, hetgeen daar grote onrust teweeg brengt.
De moeilijkheden, die een biograaf ondervindt bij het beschrijven van het leven van een wereldberoemd acteur en van de waarheid achter het glamour-masker.