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...
Literary figures
Melita Pargeter
Gender: Female
Mrs Melita Pargeter refuses to accept that her deceased husband was the man he was: a smart thief and fraudster. He left her a fortune and a promise from his gang to help her. She is, says author Simon Brett, a friendly, white-haired elderly lady, whose ample appearance hides a will of steel, great stubbornness and a sharp tongue – which makes her a formidable amateur detective.