Twinkle, Twinkle Little Spy

Published in 1977, this is the last book where Deighton used an “unnamed spy” as his protagonist, and it's a corker. In what is essentially a buddy spy story, our hero from MI6 is paired with the brash, no-nonsense Major Mann of the CIA on the case of a Soviet defector, Professor Bekuv.

Beginning in the Sahara desert, our heroes rendezvous with the Bekuv and he's brought to America with promises of a chair at a university, in return for co-operation. But Bekuv wants his wife and son to join him. The plot gets more and more complex as the novel moves from Manhattan to Miami, Paris, Dublin, back to America, before a finale in the heat of the Sahara.

Loyalties are tested at each twist in the plot. The action scenes are handled deftly, especially a shoot out at an airport and a breakneck car chase across the desert. The real delight is the wise-cracking, prickly bromance between Mann and his British counterpart. Superb dialogue, as always. This is Deighton near his best with a globe-trotting Cold War story and although the ending feels a bit perfunctory, it's still well worth the time of any spy fiction fan.

I can't help feeling that this would have worked brilliantly as a movie back in the late 70s. Entice Caine back to play the unnamed spy one more time, pair him up with, say James Caan as Major Mann, throw in Faye Dunaway as the love interest.....could have been a hit. In fact this story, with a bit of updating, could still work today.

After this Deighton would embark on his Magnum Opus, the Bernard Samson trilogies, his last word on Cold War espionage.