Goodbye Mickey Mouse and Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton

I'm going through a bit of a Len Deighton phase at the moment. He writes with great knowledge and authority and researches his stories in enormous depth - Goodbye Mickey Mouse took six years alone. Like James Ellroy (with whom he shares absolutley nothing else in common), Deighton builds up compelling narratives which effortlessly blend fact and fiction.

Goodbye Mickey Mouse is the mixed bag of the two reviewed here. If you want great war storytelling, check out Deighton's earlier and far superior novel, Bomber. As an insider take on the American fighter pilot experience of the second world war, Goodbye Mickey Mouse packs in its fair share of thrills (the combat scenes are fantastic - vividly drawn and genuinely terrifying) and unexpected twists. But it is in the novel's clumsy attempts at providing a romance that the book fails miserably - cliched and turgid and melodramatic. As a Len Deighton novel goes, it is only half worth reading.

Something which cannot be said of Yesterday's Spy which turns in an absolutely bravura work of fiction. Deighton's spies have always been the real deal over Fleming's Bond, sharing much more in common with hard boiled detectives like Philip Marlowe or Mickey Spillane. Seemingly without a conscience in his genetic make-up, the book's anti-hero Charlie has to infiltrate his old friend's gang to prevent a nuclear warhead being passed onto the wrong people. Trouble is, everyone seems to be 'the wrong people' as Charlie is crossed and double-crossed, beaten up and tortured, half-killed and left for dead on more than one occasion. To reveal its blistering ending would be a betrayal too far, but it is harsh and unexpected when it finally comes.

Deighton has written other great spy stories: you could track down The Ipcress File or Funeral in Berlin. Alternatively, have a go with John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From the Cold or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If you must start with James Bond, try Casino Royale - it's shorter and more like the Bond that Fleming intended before the films turned him into a suave, sophisticated killer in a tux.

Mr Mudd