Harry Palmer 'Palmer', 'Tommy Palmer'. So, he said, 'All right, we'll call him Harry Palmer.'" Len Deighton introduced the lead character in "The IPCRESS File", his first novel, published in November 1962. In that first-person novel, the secret agent is anonymous, although at one point he is greeted by someone saying "Hello, Harry"; he later says, "Now my name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been." Deighton's spy is described as working class, living in a back street flat and seedy hotels, and shopping in supermarkets. He wears glasses, is hindered by bureaucracy, and
The Painted Veil (novel) The Painted Veil (novel) The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. The title is taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet, which begins "Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life". The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of "Cosmopolitan" (November 1924 – March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in "Nash's Magazine". The biographer Richard Cordell notes that the book was influenced by Maugham's study of science and his work as a houseman at St Thomas' Hospital.