Editing Len Deighton (section)

===Novels===
According to the film and media historian Alan Burton, ''The IPCRESS File''—along with le Carré's 1963 novel ''[[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold]]''—"changed the nature of British spy fiction" as it brought in "a more insolent, disillusioned and cynical style to the espionage story".{{sfn|Burton|2016|p=119}} The novel used appendices and footnotes which, according to Burton, gave verisimilitude to the work.{{sfn|Burton|2013|p=37}}{{efn|The appendices for ''The IPCRESS File'' include the costs of Indian marijuana in 1962, the use of [[HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs]] as the headquarters of British Intelligence during the Second World War and cocktail recipes of drinks in the book. Some references include details of how the characters were involved in activities associated with the topics described.{{sfn|Deighton|1964|pp=214–223}}}} The academic George Grella considers Deighton's novels to be "stylish, witty [and] well-crafted",{{sfn|Grella|1988|p=449}} and that they provide "a convincingly detailed picture of the world of espionage while carefully examining the ethics and morality of that world".{{sfn|Grella|1988|p=450}} Deighton has expressed his admiration for the [[police procedural]], which he considers has an authentic feel, and approaches his fiction writing as a "spy procedural".{{sfn|Burton|2016|p=219}} Burton considers ''The IPCRESS File'' to be "a marker of a new trend in mature, realistic espionage fiction".{{sfn|Burton|2013|p=37}}

''The IPCRESS File'' appeared in bookshops at the same time as the [[James Bond]] film ''[[Dr. No (film)|Dr. No]]''. Deighton acknowledged that his career had benefited from the enormous popularity of Bond, although he denied any similarity between his and [[Ian Fleming]]'s books except being about spies.{{sfn|Deighton|1966|p=182}} The academic Clive Bloom considers that after ''Funeral in Berlin'' was published in 1964, Deighton "established a place for himself&nbsp;... in the front rank of the spy genre, along with Graham Greene, Ian Fleming and John le Carré".{{sfn|Bloom|1995|p=46}} Deighton's later works were less oblique than the earlier ones, and had, according to Bloom, "more subtlety and deeper characterization".{{sfn|Bloom|1995|p=46}} Oliver Buckton, the professor of literature, also considers Deighton to be in the forefront of post-war spy writers.{{sfn|Buckton|2012|p=57}} The crime writer and poet [[Julian Symons]] writes that "[t]he constant crackle of his dialogue makes Deighton a kind of poet of the spy story".{{sfn|Symons|1985|p=229}}

Grella considers Deighton to be "the [[Angry young men|angry young man]] of the espionage novel",{{sfn|Grella|1988|p=450}} with the central characters of his main novels—the unnamed protagonist from the ''IPCRESS'' series and Bernard Samson from the nine novels in which he appears—both working-class, cynical and streetwise, in contrast to the upper-class and ineffective senior members of the intelligence service in their respective novels.{{sfn|Burton|2016|p=119}} His working-class heroes also stand in contrast to Fleming's [[Eton College|Eton]]- and [[Fettes College|Fettes]]-educated smooth, upper-class character James Bond.{{sfn|Macdonald|1992|p=38}}