-Review of Spy Story by Len Deighton-Spy Story by Len Deighton is one of the many spy novels written by this author and it portrays to us how the espionage divisions were used in Great Britain after World War II and before the Cold War during the Soviet Union attack threats. The protagonist of the story is a spy, that uses the pseudonym of Pat Armstrong and the novels plot is about various events that occur in the spy world and in Armstrong’s life after he returns from a submarine mission. All these events are pieces of a puzzle that Armstrong will have to decode and find out before something unexpected, bad or dangerous occurs to himself, the people around him, Great Britain and the world. This novel is a great literary work due to the fact that Deighton portrays an incredible idea through the use of literary elements and a well organized writing structure. The themes of this novel show us different teaching about life and how to live and Deighton has engraved these teachings into the story and the events that affect the protagonist. Apart from this, the plot is an incredible one that is suspenseful and keeps you curious and against the book until the end. It is superbly written and is definitely the best action story I have read so far. For all these reasons I give this novel a 5 stars out of 5 stars rating, due to the fact that Deighton developed an intricate plot filled with literary elements that leads us into a fantastic climax, falling action and resolution. As Drew Middleton exclaimed about the book in the New York Times “Spy Story gets closer to what Kipling called the Great Game of international espionage than any fiction of recent years”. If you are a fan of spy or violence novels involving intricate mysterious and suspenseful events in the plot, then this is one novel you can’t miss!By: Luis Felipe LamaEnglish 10-A20/10/09
Originally published on my blog here in May 2004.After a sequence of novels which are each in some way different from everything else he had written, Spy Story is Len Deighton's return to basics. It could almost be another sequel to The Ipcress File - it even shares several characters. (It is actually listed on Fantastic Fiction as one of the Harry Palmer novels, but the narrator is named, and isn't Palmer.)Pat Armstrong, the narrator, works in wargaming, using the latest intelligence about Soviet military deployment with the help of what are now extremely primitive computers. When his car breaks down at night and he is unable to find a phone, he uses a key he still has to let himself into his old flat to make the call from there - only to find he has apparently continued to live there: and his family photos around the flat now show him with a slightly altered appearance. He is clearly at the centre of an elaborate plot of some kind, but the question is what, exactly?This is by now familiar territory to readers of spy fiction - hence the throwaway title - but few writers have ever covered this ground as expertly as Deighton. The tone is bleaker than the earlier Harry Palmer novels, but then the optimistic sixties have long passed. There is still humour here, though; less of it and less obvious, but still present. For a thriller, there isn't a great deal of action and a lot of what there is happens off stage. Spy Story is more subtle than most spy thrillers; Deighton's interest isn't in staging stunts but in the relationships between agents of various types and the politics of the interactions between different agencies, British and American, which is perhaps a slight shift from his earlier writing in the genre. This is a chance to lie back and relish vintage Len Deighton, at a slightly slower pace.
What do You think about Spy Story (1991)?
Early Deighton spy thriller, but pretty darn good reading.
—Clive Warner
It is a somewhat morosely-told tale. Reads almost like a dreary English mystery set in the Cotswolds. There is a lot of bleak weather and dour, phlegmatic, stale Englishness in this light little work. The pleasure in reading Deighton is the nimbleness of his prose; the occasional tiny flash of insight or cultural commentary. He will poke gentle fun at a crass new 'plastic thatched' farmhouse roof, or the way the wealthy serve port, or housing projects, or vegetarianism, or any number of other quirks in the setting around his characters. Somewhat similar to LeCarre in a much, much milder register. Deighton is never biting or caustic.The chapters trip sprightly along, never speechy or overburdened, which is to the good. Naturally, the inherent fun is that you know Deighton is laying a trail of clues for his protagonist --and the reader--to solve. Whatever it is, is so subtle that its impossible to predict--its all just an extended exercise in misdirection. Just so.But while all that is smartly handled, the overall sluggishness of the characters and their behavior is a bit slow-going. The main character--is he really Harry Palmer?--is maddeningly low-energy, tepid, stolid. In this book--admittedly part of a wonderful series of novels--you grow impatient for him to do something. He seems sleepwalking, in a stupor or a fog. In the early Harry Palmer novels this generates tension-- because you knew Palmer was capable of kicking butt if necessary. But this 'Pat Armstrong' character is pudgy, laconic, indecisive, vacillating. He's a non-smoker. Abstemious in habits. People walk all over him, he is browbeaten by his superiors. He's 'wallpaper'. I am not to the end yet but so far I can't label this one of Deighton's best conceptions; though of course--as I say above--the prose is supple.Thankfully, there's many more Deighton oldies to look forward to.
—Feliks
