Photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images (1986)
Sample of authors
Deighton, Len
The British author Len Deighton was born as Leonard Cyril Deighton in London. His father was a chauffeur; his mother worked in a hotel kitchen. He was a boy when he helped his father as a volunteer during the London Blitz. After leaving school he worked briefly as a railway clerk, and at the age of seventeen he joined the Royal Air Force Special Investigation Branch as a photographer. He then...
Theme article
History of crime fiction
By: Johan Wopenka
Literary figures
Mac (Cyril) McCorkle
Gender: Male
After the Second World War, during which he was an officer in a special force in Burma, Cyril ‘Mac’ McCorkle uses his savings to buy a bar in Bonn. Unfortunately, he agrees to let Mike Padillo buy a share of the business, and Padillo is (albeit unwillingly) a spy and executioner for an American secret service. Which leads to McCorkle being caught up in a number of dramatic events in books by Ros...