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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
enjoyable page turner that leaves the brain undisturbed
I first heard about this when Charles Stross mentioned that it was an inspiration for his supernatural-spy-thriller Laundry stories, which I had enjoyed quite a bit. It's obvious what Stross pillaged from this (the humdrum office work talk and the protagonist's flip attitude towards his job) but he clearly got all the good parts, because the rest of this is as average as can be.
Originally published on my blog here in December 2003.
In today's thrillers, we have come to expect that the heroes are likely to be flawed, disillusioned characters. Go back a few decades, and all that was different. I'm talking straight thrillers, here, not detective stories; a significant source for the change to the the thriller genre was the hardboiled detective school of fiction. [a:Graham Greene|2533|Graham Greene|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1254688603p2/2533.jpg] was probably the writer who introduced this style to the spy story, but Len Deighton was not far behind. followed in his turn by [a:John le Carré|1411964|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234571122p2/1411964.jpg].
Spies also tended to be upper class (think James Bond), and it was really Deighton who popularised the alternative. Harry Palmer (the narrator, not actually named in this novel) is a bright man with a good war record, who has had a successful postwar career in intelligence (at the beginning of the novel, he is about to become second in command of a powerful department). Yet he has an obvious chip on his shoulder; he says things like "Ross was a regular officer [i.e. a gentleman]; that is to say he didn't ... hit ladies without first removing his hat." The whole of the novel - and its sequels - makes the narrator's constant sneering at the upper classes a major feature, something which must have seemed quite revolutionary in the Britain of 1962. (It was, after all, the year in which the prosecuting lawyer in the Chatterley trial could say, "Is this a book you would want your servants to read?")
The plot seems at the start to be standard sixties spy thriller fare, as Palmer starts investigating some mysterious defections and strange behaviour among senior British scientists. It turns into an attempt to fram Palmer as a traitor, a charge which in those post-Burgess and MacLean days he can only refute by uncovering the colleague who is really in the pay of the other side. The Ipcress File is one of the earlier spy novels with a betrayal scheme, even if it is an extremely familiar plot to readers of Deighton and Le Carré's later novels.
While many of the positive features of The Ipcress File became staples of the spy thriller genre, making them now seem less innovative, it still has nice touches all of its own. The ironic chapter headings, supposedly Harry Palmer's newspaper horoscope for the day, form one which I particularly liked. The Ipcress File is a paramount classic of the genre, establishing the mould for hundreds of imitators ever since, both as novels and in film.
In today's thrillers, we have come to expect that the heroes are likely to be flawed, disillusioned characters. Go back a few decades, and all that was different. I'm talking straight thrillers, here, not detective stories; a significant source for the change to the the thriller genre was the hardboiled detective school of fiction. [a:Graham Greene|2533|Graham Greene|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1254688603p2/2533.jpg] was probably the writer who introduced this style to the spy story, but Len Deighton was not far behind. followed in his turn by [a:John le Carré|1411964|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234571122p2/1411964.jpg].
Spies also tended to be upper class (think James Bond), and it was really Deighton who popularised the alternative. Harry Palmer (the narrator, not actually named in this novel) is a bright man with a good war record, who has had a successful postwar career in intelligence (at the beginning of the novel, he is about to become second in command of a powerful department). Yet he has an obvious chip on his shoulder; he says things like "Ross was a regular officer [i.e. a gentleman]; that is to say he didn't ... hit ladies without first removing his hat." The whole of the novel - and its sequels - makes the narrator's constant sneering at the upper classes a major feature, something which must have seemed quite revolutionary in the Britain of 1962. (It was, after all, the year in which the prosecuting lawyer in the Chatterley trial could say, "Is this a book you would want your servants to read?")
The plot seems at the start to be standard sixties spy thriller fare, as Palmer starts investigating some mysterious defections and strange behaviour among senior British scientists. It turns into an attempt to fram Palmer as a traitor, a charge which in those post-Burgess and MacLean days he can only refute by uncovering the colleague who is really in the pay of the other side. The Ipcress File is one of the earlier spy novels with a betrayal scheme, even if it is an extremely familiar plot to readers of Deighton and Le Carré's later novels.
While many of the positive features of The Ipcress File became staples of the spy thriller genre, making them now seem less innovative, it still has nice touches all of its own. The ironic chapter headings, supposedly Harry Palmer's newspaper horoscope for the day, form one which I particularly liked. The Ipcress File is a paramount classic of the genre, establishing the mould for hundreds of imitators ever since, both as novels and in film.
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Len Deighton's first book is a little slow and dense but his writing talent and humor come through. A spy thriller but not the James Bond type of adventure. His spy, who goes unnamed througout the book, is on the thinking side of the equation. The plot revolves around the disappearance of some scientists and the British intellegience community attempts to find the out who is responsible.
The writing was very good in dialog and character development, but I found it a little hard to follow the plot. There was some very good humor, but there were spots where I didn't understand the British reference and missed the point. I will try another book by Deighton, because I do like his style with subtle humor.
I enjoyed this, though it did feel a bit jumpy in a couple of spots.
I read it mainly because Charlie Stross mentions it as one of his inspirations for his *Laundry Files* series, which I really rather love. Also, I do like thrillers in general, and this is a well-known one that I hadn't read yet, so it felt like filling a gap.
It is, admittedly, an artifact of its time—expected sexism, etc.—but as a story of government agents working after the war it's well done. As an American who's lived in England for a year or so, I also liked the parts where the Brit narrator was commenting on the Americans he knew and how they did things (the whole section at the nuclear testing site, for example).
I think I'd like to read more in the series.
I read it mainly because Charlie Stross mentions it as one of his inspirations for his *Laundry Files* series, which I really rather love. Also, I do like thrillers in general, and this is a well-known one that I hadn't read yet, so it felt like filling a gap.
It is, admittedly, an artifact of its time—expected sexism, etc.—but as a story of government agents working after the war it's well done. As an American who's lived in England for a year or so, I also liked the parts where the Brit narrator was commenting on the Americans he knew and how they did things (the whole section at the nuclear testing site, for example).
I think I'd like to read more in the series.
Being unfamiliar with that era and region of the world, I often found words, phrases, and situations difficult to understand and would lose the story line.
This is the first novel based on the story of the famous spy Harry Palmer who was brilliantly played by Michael Caine.
“He had a long thin nose, a moustache like flock wallpaper, sparse, carefully combed hair, and the complexion of a Hovis loaf.”
An enjoyable but bewildering and confusing book. Deighton withholds almost all the information needed to make sense of the plot. Even a basic structure of the story is difficult to discern. There are endless twists and turns, digressions and movements in place and time. I'm sure this was super cool back in the 1960s with its leisurely and convoluted meandering.
Here's my version of what I thought the plot was about:
WOOC(P) receives intelligence of Raven's transfer to the Soviets in Beirut. Dalby organises a rescue mission with the protagonist participating. The protagonist is a lookout while Dalby kills Raven's captors and rescues him. He kills the occupants of a car which arrives on the scene to maintain the cover of the operation. He believes them to be operatives working for Jay. They instead turn out to be members of ONI. The operation is otherwise a success and Raven is recovered, but the investigation into Jay continues. Dalby disappears, going undercover, leaving the protagonist in charge of WOOC(P). At this point the protagonist's former superior from military intelligence, Colonel Ross, approaches the him. He offers to sell him confidential information related to the affair. The protagonist rejects the offer in disgust, but begins to second-guess himself.
Carswell, a statistician assigned to the matter notes bizarre links between the kidnap victims. A break appears with the arrest of Housemartin, one of Jay's high-ranking operatives. He's been impersonating a police officer. The protagonist and Murray, another operative assigned to the case, arrive at the police station but they discover Housemartin's murder. Information from the arrest enables WOOC(P) and the police to storm one of Jay's safe-houses. This find that this is abandoned. To help with the administration of the department, the protagonist is assigned gets an assistant, Jean. Jean is a beautiful young woman and he begins to develop romantic feelings towards her. Dalby re-emerges, and reveals intelligence suggesting that Jay's operations will interfere with an American neutron bomb test in the Pacific.
Dalby, Jean and the protagonist arrive at the test site as British observers. While there the protagonist learns from an old friend, Barney, that the Americans suspect him of being a double-agent due to the deaths of the CIA operatives in Beirut. Jean reveals to the protagonist that Dalby has left been visiting an abandoned Japanese bunker on the island. Soon after, Barney is killed in suspicious circumstances. While following Dalby to the scene the protagonist is present at the sabotage of bomb test site. This sets back the bomb test plus a military police officer dies. The protagonist is arrested by the Americans and interrogated. Then he is transferred to Hungary on suspicion of being a Soviet agent. There, he is drugged and subject to days of psychological and physical torture. He almost cracks before managing to escape. He discovers that he is in fact back in London. The protagonist takes refuge with Charlie Cavendish. Charlie is the father of a friend killed towards the end of the Second World War. He then tries to re-establish contact with WOOC(P) while evading arrest for treason. Charlie is killed by Jay's operatives, forcing the protagonist on the run. He approaches Dalby at his home, but discovers Dalby meeting with Murray, Jay and another of Jay's operatives. This confirms the protagonist's suspicions that Dalby is in fact the traitor.
Murry discovers the protagonist, who reveals himself to be an undercover operative from military intelligence also investigating Dalby. The protagonist escapes, but is soon captured by Jay's operatives and taken to meet Jay. But military intelligence follows them, and Jay and Dalby are arrested by Colonel Ross. The protagonist reveals to Jean that Jay and Dalby were using a process called "Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex with Stress" (IPCRESS) to brainwash the VIPs into loyalty to the Soviet Union. They had also unsuccessfully attempted to subject the protagonist to this too. The seemingly irrelevant links that Carswell had discovered were in fact indicators of the personality traits that Jay had used to determine which VIPs would succumb to the process. Dalby was the one who had sabotaged the American bomb test, as part of Jay and Dalby's efforts to frame the protagonist. Colonel Ross reveals that his attempt to sell information to the protagonist had been a test of his loyalty. The protagonist had passed by rejecting it. The novel ends with the protagonist concluding his report to the Minister. It reveals that Jay has turned and began working for the British. It also reveals the execution of Dalby with his death covered up as a car accident.
This is one of those instances where the film is better than the book. It makes more sense for starters, plus Michael Caine puts in an excellent turn as Harry Palmer.