[So far] the only newcomer to emerge with an original approach has been Mr. Len Deighton with his first novel, The Ipcress File. Described in the publishers' advertisement as presenting "spyworks with the lid off", this story … carries certainly an air of inside knowledge: to add even more verisimilitude, Mr. Deighton includes appendixes on handling unfamiliar pistols, "top secret" atomic explosions, the composition of neutron bombs, the prices currently fetched by Indian hemp, and the recipe for a cocktail called the Tokwe Twist. The villain, a free-lance dealer in information, code-named Jay ("All people under long-term surveillance had bird-names"), is said, moreover, to have "masterminded" the escape from England of Burgess and Maclean, and to be now engaged in the mass-abduction of British biochemists.

The subject-matter and the general set-up are traditional….

The originality resides mainly in the style and personality of the anonymous narrator, a professional spy...