Spy Story (novel) Spy Story (novel) Spy Story is a 1974 spy novel by Len Deighton, which features minor characters from his earlier novels "The IPCRESS File", "Funeral in Berlin", "Horse Under Water", and "Billion Dollar Brain". In common with several of his other early novels, the chapter headings have a "feature". In "Spy Story" these take the form of excerpts from the fictional Studies Centre's rules. As in the earlier "Unnamed hero" novels, we never learn the protagonist's real name, only that he is living under the name Pat Armstrong. Armstrong works for the Studies Centre in London, where various tactical wargame
The IPCRESS File his attempt to sell information to the protagonist had been a test of his loyalty, which the protagonist had passed by rejecting it. The novel ends with the protagonist concluding his report to the Minister, revealing that Jay has turned and began working for the British, while Dalby has been executed and his death covered up as a car accident. In 1992 Deighton said that the inspiration to write the novel came from his real-life neighbour Anna Wolkoff, a White Russian émigré who collaborated with a cipher clerk from the American embassy to spy for Germany in World War II.