Reading 2024: Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton

Told in the first person, this is a plunge into a world peopled by men equipped with gold Dunhill lighters who bonded through sharing danger in the Second World War and whose main approach to coping with what they remember is to drink large amounts without ever getting properly drunk. 

It opens in White's, the very grandest of the St James's Street clubs. Someone I used to know joined White's and Brooks's and, realising that the latter was a nicer place by far, inquired at White's how he could resign his membership. His question was met with utter perplexity: "Sir, no one has ever requested such a thing before."

Anyway, that is pretty much the last glimpse we get of English high society - and puzzlingly the character who is supposedly a member of White's is more Arab than English anyway. 

Speaking of things Arab, the plot turns out to be surprisingly contemporary - with both Russians and Arabs implicated in a dangerous plot against the west. As regards the latter of the two aggressors, one character observes that everyone knows what the novel's villain "is up to: he's an Arab." "And you?" comes the response. "I'm a Jew, simple as that", is the reply. The same character later observes "Helping the Israelis might be the West's only chance to survive". I suspect this may still be true today, although I recognise this is contested ground and have no intention of engaging in any arguments on the subject.

It is eventually discovered that the dirty work to get the planned attack on the west off the ground has been performed in secret in France by people "from all the Arab states, brought in as waiters and labourers, foundry workers and garbage men...the French immigration can't stop them." Immigration authorities worldwide seems to have caught the virus of impotence since then. Perhaps it originated with the French - who knows.

Anyway, lo and behold, what a shock, our narrator narrowly foils the dastardly plot, after some rather John Steed/Avengers plot twists. All eventually ends reasonably well - as well as it can in a disenchanted post-war world. 

The whole thing took only a few hours to read and is therefore a proper airport book - in the sense that if you got stuck, as sadly does happen too often, for hours in an airport, it would entertain you for several hours. 

Incidentally, one aspect of the novel that I hadn't expected, and that enhances its escapist atmosphere, is Deighton's fondness for describing men's clothing. One character has "a beautifully cut chalk-stripe suit", another wears "chalk-stripe worsted" and "hand-made shoes", a third, bizarrely, sports "a short fur coat and a black kerchief knotted cowboy-style, right against the throat", while a fourth, a rather tough German policeman, is seen straightening "the shoulder strap of his impeccable white trench coat". I seem to remember that a dark grey pure silk trench coat also makes an appearance. 

Not many hand-made shoes or chalk-stripe worsteds were in evidence at Luton airport last time I was there. Perhaps things have improved since. If not, Deighton would provide not only diversion but a sartorial refuge while stuck waiting for a cheap flight.