Books: The Ipcress File by Len Deighton (1962)

“After a transfer from military intelligence to WOOC(P), a small civilian intelligence agency reporting directly to the British Cabinet, the protagonist of the book, works under the command of a man named Dalby. An intelligence broker code-named "Jay" is suspected to be behind a series of kidnappings of British VIPs with the intention of selling them to the Soviets, and the protagonist is assigned to meet Jay to secure the release of "Raven", a high-ranking scientist. While trying to meet Jay at a Soho strip club to negotiate Raven's release, the protagonist discovers Raven's unconscious body in a back room but is unsuccessful in trying to rescue him. For our working class narrator, an apparent straightforward mission to find a missing biochemist becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy.”

Len Deighton’s 1962 debut novel was seen as different take on spies than what Ian Fleming and others were doing when these types of thrillers were captivating readers in the late 1950s, early 1960s. First off, the protagonist is never named, though there is a sequence in the novel when someone greets him by saying “Hello, Harry.” This causes him to think, "Now my name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been.” Secondly, this man is just a normal British citizen, not born into any special family, nor suave like James Bond. In other words, your basic everyday neighbor.

Like a lot of hardcore science fiction of the era, this more serious Cold War spy novel does not feature a lot of action (writer Charles Stross pointed out in his Atrocity Achieve book that he lifted a lot of the books business themes from this and other Deighton titles, as he goes on about administrative procedures and being proper good people and villains). It’s a lot of talk, along with a deep dive of endless prose about British bureaucracy. While the plot does feature some travel, it’s not as globetrotting as James Bond would do, and while the stratagem to brainwash groups of people is based in some truth, the plausibility is stretched here.

Deighton wrote five novels featuring Harry who is not Harry (though the 1965 film version starring Michael Caine called the character Harry Palmer), but for a book praised as literary thriller, one that set the standard for this genre, The Ipcress File failed to grab me in any way and was a struggle to finish.