One of my all time favourite authors has sadly passed away at 97 years of age. I always thought Deighton was a much better writer of the spy and espionage novels that pervaded the 60s fiction market and certainly I enjoyed his books more than contemporaries Ian Fleming and John Le Carre works in that genre. While espionage was his main genre over the years, he wrote many other great books across the years both fiction and cooking books plus an excellent military history trilogy on aspects of the Second World War. He also wrote the script for Richard Attenborough's first feature film as a director "Oh, What a Lovely War!" but declined a script credit. Sadly never honoured under our annual honours system. Probably living continuously outside the UK since the late 1960s and his comment on his fiction books not being serious literature didn't help?

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