”A man’s features, the bone structure and the tissue which covers it, are the product of a biological process; but his face he creates for himself. It is a statement of his habitual emotional attitude; the attitude which his desires need for their fulfilment and which his fears demand for their p...
Returning to his hotel room after a late-night flirtation with a cabaret dancer at an Istanbul b™ite, Graham is surprised by an intruder with a gun. What follows is a nightmare of intrigue for the English armaments engineer as he makes his way home aboard an Italian freighter. Among the passenger...
Having authored A Coffin for Dimitrios, and The Light of Day, Eric Ambler is known as one of the father’s of the thriller. Since I have read A Coffin for Dimitrios, and seen Topkapi, the film version of The Light and Day, I decided to read one of Ambler’s less well-known books, Epitaph for a Spy....
tEric Ambler. That’s worth five stars by itself. The Light of Day (1962) is that rarest of enjoyments, a successful comedic thriller. Many writers can do thrillers good, bad, and forgotten, but very few can do a thriller with such an infectious sense of humor. tArthur Abdul Simpson, Ambler’s rog...
This is one of Eric Ambler's first spy novels, and it's just OK. A silly plot that hasn't aged well. A broke but honorable British journalist risks life and limb in 1937 Europe to restore stolen documents from some bad guys to some good guys. The bad guys are the international oil business, in ...
In this classic thriller, two American tourists find more adventure than they bargained for when they get involved with Chinese gun smugglers and Muslim revolutionaries, learning first hand about the intrigue of the post-colonial world. Greg and Dorothy Nilsen had wanted to go on an adventurous ...
Antivirale Eccellente avventura meno cerebrale di LeCarr�, meno pirotecnica di Fleming ma col grandissimo mestiere misurato e temperato di Ambler. Parte a fatica, scegliendo la forma inusuale del doppio memoriale di un giornalista esperto in questioni mediorientali - il guazzabuglio etno-politico...
It wasn’t anyone’s idea of a glamorous first assignment at a white show law firm. George Cary, former WWII bomber pilot and newly minted lawyer, was given the ignoble task of going through the tons of files on the Schneider Johnson case, just to make sure nothing had been overlooked. But, as luck...
I've read so many beautifully written books lately that this was disappointing. It's adequately written yet it never sings. Still, the plot, once it gets going, is damn good, and the writer has a wonderful command of real-world intrigue. The protagonist, who is a playwright working as a journalis...
This was a pleasant read for a number of reasons.First, Eric Ambler is apparently considered by many espionage writers to be the founding father of the field. John le Carré (The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) described him as "the source on which we all draw." Second...
This first American edition of collected true-crime pieces from the '50s and '60s by the master author of Epitaph for a Spy, Journey Into Fear, The Light of Day et al. belongs on every fan's bookshelves. Ambler's polite, leisurely stroll down memory lane is a delight. He deals with classic villai...
This is a high-tension thriller with little of the lyricism I look for in a narrative, to balance the action.Instead there was delicious irony and wry humour --but not enough to really balance out the nerve wracking tension and pace of it. So, on a personal level, it was not wholly to my liking...
Arthur Abdel Simpson is middle-aged, stateless and desperately in need of a new passport. Neither the Egyptians want him, the land of his mother, nor the British, the land of his father and where he was educated. As Her Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul in Athens says, "You're a disgusting creature...
Actually, I didn't read very far into this book. The nearly exclusive use of dialogue, boring dialogue at that, became annoying enough that I finally decided to give it up and move on to another book. I read "The Mask of Demetrios" (originally "The Coffin of Demetrios") about a year ago, and love...
A fascinating spy vs. spy story in which a couple of European directors of intelligence decide to pay for their retirement by purchasing a newsletter called Intercom and making it publish little intelligence tidbits that none of the intelligence services wanted to see disseminated. The story take...
The Light of Day was the basis for Jules Dassin’s classic film, Topkapi.When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with city and in need of a private driver. In other words, the perfect mark for Simpson’s brand of entrepreneurship...
Nei primi anni 1970, Ernesto Castillo vive in esilio sull'isola di St. Paul-les-Alizés, nelle Antille francesi, una tipica isola post-coloniale dei Caraibi. Dodici anni prima, suo padre, il leader di un Paese dell'America Centrale, una ex colonia spagnola che non viene mai nominata, è stato assas...
AS I CAME into the room, he put his paper down and got to his feet. He was in evening clothes. “Good evening, Mr. Marlow.” “Good evening, General.” I did not feel particularly cordial, and could not have sounded so, for he coughed apologetically. “I hope you will forgive this intrusion. I was par...
Jebb glanced over his shoulder at me. He was lean, rangy and very Australian. “Done anything about getting yourself a room, Steve?” he asked. “I thought of trying the Orient.” “You might get a bed there. You won’t get a room to yourself. Isn’t that right, Abdul?” “Oh yes. You can’t sleep alone in...
He is, after all, an elderly man unaccustomed to explosions. It is likely that, in all important respects, my account is the more balanced of the two. That said, however, his initial achievement remains and should be recognized for what it is: a triumph of chance over all ...
Five years of the interval were spent in the army. I had an eventful war, and for a time after it took to film-making as a writer-producer. As a producer I was a flop but as a writer I had a series of successes. A screenplay I had written for an Ealing film was nominated for an Oscar. For the Ame...