A person's life is uncharted, human beings are not especially good at predicting the future, yet they do so anyway, prejudging different material, people, and issues based off of past experiences. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy, by Len Deighton, challenges the act of making assumptions, Deighton uses character switches and plot twists to break the reader's expectations while subsequently creating unique situations that interact with characters in such a way as to add more depth and realism to them. These character switches and plot twists keeps readers uncertain and anxious about what will happen next, as this story is anything but predictable. Throughout the book Deighton copies many of the default spy genre characters, like the cocky british …show more content…
When one of the main characters, Colonel Mann of the CIA, finds out that his old friend Hank Dean had been accused of being a K.G.B operative, he explains his contemplation to his friend and admits that he has, “got the choice of handing [the case] over to another investigating officer...or of bending the rules and try to make it easy on him…’I don't want to believe it’...’I was just going to press on with the investigation and keep stumm’” (Deighton p.85). Readers expect the “tough guy” who is always cracking jokes and asserting power, to do just that. Yet the situation reveals another side to Mann, an unexpected questioning of his job and its impact on his personal life. This contemplation is followed by an implied realisation of the interconnectedness of both his job and his personal life, that each draws from the other. It's these sort developments that Deighton excels at, he puts his characters and plot in unique positions and in doing so both aferms the uncertainty of the readers expectations and challenges them to investigate revelations about the characters. When going into this book it's often easy to make assumptions about how things are going to turn out, but readers are encouraged to embrace the uncertainty of the future