Tributes have been paid to a Guernsey-based author, behind more than 25 spy novels, including ‘The Ipcress File’, who has died aged 97.
Len Deighton moved to Guernsey several years after the success of his debut novel, which was turned into a hugely-popular film starring Michael Caine.
Former Guernsey Deputy Heidi Soulsby MBE said she loved Deighton’s books for “their depth and realism”.
She told Express: “The first one I read was ‘The Ipcress File’ when I was a teenager.
“I found it both gripping and gritty, with a working class spy who was the complete opposite of James Bond and who operated in a very different world to that portrayed by Ian Fleming.”
Mrs Soulsby said she was intending to re-read one of her favourite Deighton novels, ‘Bomber’, soon.
It was a “haunting story of the last flight of an Avro Lancaster in a bombing raid over Germany in World War Two”, she added.
Though the two never met, Mrs Soulsby said she wished they had as Deighton “had an interesting life outside of being a novelist”, she said.
Illustrating Kerouac
The son of a chauffeur and part-time cook, Leonard Cyril Deighton was born in a workhouse infirmary in London in 1929, growing up near Baker Street in London.
After stints as a railway clerk, a flight attendant and an RAF crime scene photographer, he studied art at St Martin’s School of Art in London, going on to a successful career as a book illustrator – famously designing the first UK cover for Jack Kerouac’s classic ‘On the Road’.
But it was his switch to writing that brought Deighton’s own name to the front cover.
Nazi spy next door
Despite being 33 when the novel was published, it was his experience as an 11-year-old boy seeing a Nazi spy, Anna Wolkoff, arrested that planted the seed for his later literary career.
Deighton’s mother had cooked for Wolkoff, a British woman of Russian descent, before she was accused of – and later jailed for – stealing correspondence between Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt.
He later said watching her arrest was “a major factor in my decision to write a spy story at my first attempt at fiction”.
Playboy and Motörhead
Deighton went on to write a further 26 novels, including ‘Spy Story’, ‘SS-GB’ and ‘Billion Dollar Brain’, many of which were adapted for film and TV.
His 1970 novel ‘Bomber’ was listed by Anthony Burgess as one of the 99 best novels since 1939.
Motörhead singer Lemmy was reading the novel while they were recording their third studio album – which he named after it.
Deighton became a travel correspondent for Playboy in the mid 60s and was the writer and co-producer on the film version of ‘Oh! What a Lovely War’ in 1969. However, he asked to have his name removed from the project as he didn’t enjoy the experience.
Pretty girls and typewriters
Fittingly reclusive for a spy novelist, Deighton rarely gave interviews and avoided public appearances at all costs.
The best thing about writing books,” he once said, was “being at a party and telling some pretty girl you write books”.
The worst thing was “sitting at a typewriter and actually writing the book”.
By 2006 he was spending some of his time living in Guernsey. He confirmed his retirement in 2016.
Deighton died in Guernsey on 15 March 2026. He is survived by his wife and two sons.