Len Deighton interview

In The Telegraph, Jake Kerridge talks to novelist Len Deighton about his career.

He hopes new readers will “get a laugh” out of his books. Does he think other spy writers are too solemn? “It’s difficult to be sure sometimes what is intended humour and what is unintended, isn’t it?”

But he also likes the idea of making his readers “jump about” as they try to work out whether his characters are telling the truth, half-truths or downright lies. They are always saying something different from what they appear to be saying – but then we all do that, says Deighton. “You read the obituaries of Harold Pinter, for instance, if you want an insight into how people can say nasty things in what appears to be a eulogy. People communicate by miscommunicating. The English are supreme at this.”