Agent Palmer

There is something unique about Only When I Laugh, or Only When I Larf, in the original English printing, the first non-spy novel written by Len Deighton. It reads much more like a short story or even a short play than a novel but that’s also what makes it fun to read.

Is this a short story that reads like a novel or a novel that reads like a short story? Either way it’s difficult to pin down exactly why An Expensive Place to Die is a quick and fun read except to say that it was written by Len Deighton, and if you like his stuff, you like his stuff.

The fourth and final novel in the unnamed spy series by Len Deighton, The Billion Dollar Brain, is brilliant.

Funeral in Berlin is the third installment in Len Deighton’s unnamed spy series, most commonly known as the Harry Palmer series, because of the films made based on four of the books, this one included.

Horse Under Water was the second book published by author Len Deighton, the first being his spy novel debut with “The IPCRESS File.” It continued, what would become a, series of four novels about an unnamed spy or secret agent, who in the film adaptations was named Harry Palmer and portrayed by Michael Caine.