Deighton's Tennis trilogy, begun in 1983, preceded his Fishing trilogy, begun in 1988. In these lengthy and subtle character studies of one man in terms of his profession, we are reminded of French author Romain Holland's ten volume study of a Germanborn musician in Jean-Christophe (19061912). But apart from the study of a man relative to his profession, Deighton's underlying purpose is not only to lash the "old boy network" in the SIS but also to flay the entire British upper-middle and aristocratic classes whose Victorian world view of Empire he thinks anachronistic in modern times. Deighton appears to believe that the present "governors" of Great Britain are morally irresponsible — if not amoral altogether — as well as being intellectually incompetent to cope with the social decadence and disorder currently ravaging the Western World.

What trilogies or longer studies of fiction Deighton may have modeled his work on...