The protagonist of Deighton's first four novels (The IPCRESS File, Horse Under Water, Funeral In Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain) was never once given a name. Now that's an interesting gambit for a spy thriller. He worked for WOOC(P) - an acronym that even Deighton can't pin down accurately - presumably some secret department of the War Office, based in non-descript offices in Charlotte Street just north of Oxford Street. Deighton himself was a graphic artist turned newspaper columnist and author. He was never a spy but he researched meticulously as any investigative journalist would and wrote quite brilliantly.
John le Carré on the other hand (real name David Cornwell) worked for both MI5 and MI6 until the early 1960s when he, along with several other operatives, had to be retired from active service because their cover was blown by a defecting Briton. Le Carré (he adopted the pen name because the Foreign Office would allow its employees to publish under their real identities) based his version of the Secret Intelligence Service in headquarters on Shaftesbury Avenue at Cambridge Circus - see the map below - and he always referred to the organisation as 'The Circus'; not only a good codename but one layered with ironic overtones. Interestingly, Stella Rimington, director-general of MI5 in the 1990s, has published a raft of spy novels in her own name since her retirement; presumably the nom-de-plume requirement doesn't apply to those no longer actively spooking.
I-Spy Map of London centred on 'The Circus'
Probably the most famous of le Carré's novels were those featuring intelligence officer George Smiley (Call For The Dead, A Murder of Quality, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People), especially as Smiley also transferred successfully to the big and small screens in adaptations starring a roll-call of great actors from Rupert Davies and James Mason via Alec Guinness to Denholm Elliot and Gary Oldman. Le Carré's series of novels about 'The Circus' are intelligent, intense and involving creations, written with the wit and authenticity that suggest fiction is but a thin veneer over lived experience.
Smiley the Ring Master
As with any real-life circus, there is anticipation, excitement, tension, trickery, bravura, skill and suspense to be found within the pages of any of the name-checked novels. If you've never read one, roll up, roll up. I think a splendid time is guaranteed for all. I do sometimes wonder if the subject matter appeals more to boys and men than girls and women, though I see no good reason why it should.Here to conclude, my latest poem, extracted from the imaginarium using that most dastardly of tortures, the deadline. I give you...
SpookedDead air. Who went there?Not even the ubiquitous dovescircled the square on that morningof twitching curtains in faceless baystracking invisible tails and foggy trails. They say when the west is benighted, the east is delighted, certainly the case last evening when confusion reignedin the house of the flattered bee,a honey-trap sprung. There is no glamour in sleeping with a pistol under one's pillow,waking in adrenalin sweat with eachunfathomable creaking, the pissingin fear over unfamiliar u-bends,life as a cryptically lonesome cipher.They also say fear not the soles led by a duty to cosmology,it's the heavier tread of hobnailed ideologythat kills the will to go on dissembling,that and the paranoia,those fleeting glimpses of pointed heads.Bizarre occurrence in Navarre,one hot Englishwoman to be tradedin discreet fashion walked slowlytowards the car and a future unnumbed,the edge of silence portentousbefore two bullets ripped her heartfrom front and back,spinning her like a hapless topto the dizzying cobbles.
She bled out shot by both sidesbeneath the sign of the double cross,a merciless date with destinywhile from a watching casement the ringmaster sighed,whip cracked, duty done, always beyond reach of reproach.No place for weakness, self or sentiment.Thanks for reading. Never let the left hand know what the right is doing! S ;-) Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
