The Billion Dollar Brain by Len Deighton was most certainly a prime slice of Spy -Fi: it foresaw.,in the sixties, the internet and cyberwarfare. This does feature Harry Palmer (although he is never named in the novel itself) and his mission here is to flush out a plot, lead by a potty American mogul, to destabilise the Eastern bloc.
I suspect that Harry Palmer was initially conceived as an anti-Bond figure - four-eyed, leftish, and not particularly suave with it - but it is the very Spy Fi elements in this novel, as well as Deighton's others in this cycle,that do give it a bit of a Bond-like feel.
(Fun fact: what dates this novel is that the love interest - if memory serves - is just seventeen!)
Le Carre, with his down-at heal verisimiltude and the in character of George Smiley, overturned the Bond precedent much more effectively - but the Spy Fi elements went out with it. He is a straight -down -the -line espionage writer, unless anyone can tell me otherwise.
