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Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

This paperback edition 2011

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd in 1968

ONLY WHEN I LARF. Copyright © Len Deighton 1967. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2011

Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2011

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007385867

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 9780007450862

Version: 2017-08-22

There is an ancient saying among the peoples of

Mesopotamia, ‘Four fingers stand between truth

and lies’, and if you hold your hand to your

face you will find that measurement to be the

distance between the eye and the ear.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Cover designer’s note

Introduction

1. Bob

2. Liz

3. Silas

4. Bob

5. Liz

6. Silas

7. Bob

8. Liz

9.

10. Silas

11. Liz

12. Bob

13. Liz

14. Silas

15. Bob

16. Liz

17. Silas

18. Bob

About the Author

Other Books by Len Deighton

About the Publisher

Cover designer’s note

Prompted by seeing the renderings of my two murals for Cunard’s new ship, Queen Elizabeth, Len Deighton suggested that I illustrate some of the covers of this next quartet of re-issues. I am delighted to be given the opportunity to draw once again, as it has been well over thirty years since my days as a regular illustrator for the Sunday Times.

Initially, it was intended that the cover design for Only When I Larf would also feature an illustration but sometimes, during the evolution of a design, another approach presents itself that causes one to change tack, and so it was here.

When I was first considering how I might illustrate the cover, a trip up to Larry Edmunds’ famed cinema bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard had provided me with lobby cards from the film adaptation of Only When I Larf as reference for the trio of tricksters. I had decided that the background would be Manhattan’s former Pan Am building on Park Avenue, based upon a photograph I had taken on my very first visit to the US in the 1960s. On my return to England I took the helicopter to Kennedy airport from the building’s roof. My trip was actually around the same time of the book’s main characters’ helicopter flight – I could well have bumped into them!