Len Deighton was born in 1929 in London. He did his national service in the RAF, went to the Royal College of Art and designed many book jackets, including the original UK edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The enormous success of his first spy novel, The IPCRESS File (1962), was repeated in a remarkable sequence of books over the following decades. These varied from historical fiction (Bomber, perhaps his greatest novel) to dystopian alternative fiction (SS-GB) and a number of brilliant non-fiction books on the Second World War (Fighter, Blitzkrieg and Blood, Tears and Folly). 
 
His spy novels chart the twists and turns of Britain and the Cold War in ways which now give them a unique flavour. They preserve a world in which Europe contains many dictatorships, in which the personal can be ruined by the ideological and where the horrors of the Second World War are buried under only a very thin layer of soil. Deighton's fascination with technology, his sense of humour and his brilliant evocation of time and place make him one of the key British espionage writers, alongside John Buchan, Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré.

Len Deighton

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Oscar de Muriel

Idols of the theatre Henry Irving and Ellen Terry are preparing to stage Macbeth in Edinburgh. But long before the actors hit the boards the play-house is hit with horror; the piercing, desolate wail of a banshee and a bloody message smeared on the street. 
 
Legendary Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and disgraced London sceptic Inspector Ian Frey are to investigate. While McGray flicks through tattered tomes on the supernatural, Frey is convinced the whole thing is just a publicity stunt. 
 
But as the gory messages keep coming one thing is sure; whether by human hand or not, death is coming.

A Mask of Shadows

Frey & McGray Book 3

A woman pleads for the help of Inspectors Frey and 'Nine-Nails' McGray. Her son, illegitimate scion of the Koloman family, has received an anonymous death threat - right after learning he is to inherit the best part of a vast wine-producing estate. 
 
In exchange for their protection, she offers McGray a cure for his sister who has been locked in an insane asylum after brutally murdering their parents: the miraculous waters that spring in a small island in the remote Loch Maree. 
 
The island has long been a sacred burial ground, but the legends around it will turn out to be much darker than McGray could have ever expected.

Loch of the Dead

Frey & McGray Book 4

In Edinburgh's lunatic asylum, a patient escapes as a nurse lays dying. Leading the manhunt are local legend Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey. 
 
 Before the murder, the suspect was in whispered conversation with a fellow patient - a girl who had been mute for years. 
 
 What made her suddenly break her silence? And why won't she talk again now? 
 
McGray drags Frey with him, tracking a devious psychopath far beyond their jurisdiction, through the worst blizzard in living memory, into the shadow of Pendle Hill - home of the Lancashire witches - where unimaginable danger awaits...

A Fever of the Blood

A Victorian Mystery Book 2

Edinburgh, 1888. A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the murder makes no sense. 
 
Fearing a national panic over a copycat Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss, Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray, actually believes in such nonsense. 
 
McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next...

The Strings of Murder

Frey & McGray Book 1

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