Author Len Deighton, who lived next door to a Nazi spy in the war, created a nightmare vision of Britain under the jackboot

Len Deighton created a fascinating and terrifying alternative world in his 1978 book SS-GB where Britain fell to the Nazis, now adapted by BBC1 for peak-time Sunday viewing.

He has dined with everyone from Nazi criminals to the cream of British society; from rock’n’roll royalty to eminent philosophers. He has lived all over the world and known spies and traitors. Some say he would have made a successful intelligence agent himself…

But he is also a man of many parts. Author, film producer and successful artist, published cook — who made it cool for men to be in the kitchen — and eminent historian: Len Deighton is all of these.

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