Eric Ambler (1909–1998)
Author of The Mask of Dimitrios
About the Author
Eric Ambler was born in London on June 28, 1909. Ambler toured in the late 1920s as a music-hall comedian and wrote plays, following in the footsteps of his parents, who were entertainers. After studying engineering at London University from 1924 to 1927, he took an apprenticeship in engineering at show more the Edison Swan Electric Company. When the company became part of Associated Electrical Industries, he worked in its advertising department and wrote avant-garde plays in his spare time. By 1937 he was the director of a London ad agency. He later resigned and moved to Paris where he dedicated himself to writing. In 1936, his first novel, The Dark Frontier, appeared and followed by another five by 1940, as well as working as script consultant for Alexander Korda. During World War II he joined first the artillery and was then later posted to a combat photographic unit. He served in Italy as assistant director of army cinematography and during this period, wrote and produced nearly one hundred training and propaganda films. After the war Ambler was screenwriter for the Rank organization and starting from 1951 he published a number of novels with Charles Rodda under the pseudonym Eliot Reed. Several of his novels were made into films, including A Coffin for Dimitrios in 1944, Journey into Fear in 1942, and Topkapi in 1964. Ambler also wrote screenplays, including those for The Cruel Sea in 1953 and The Guns of Navarone in 1961. In the 1960s he moved to Hollywood and was responsible for the TV shows Checkmate and The Most Deadly Game. Ambler received the Gold Dagger in 1959 for Passage of Arms, in 1967 for Dirty Story and in 1972 for The Levanter. He also received the Diamond Dagger in 1986 plus an Edgar in 1964 for The Light of Day and was nominated Grand Master in 1975. Ambler was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1981, and received other literary awards in France and Sweden. He died in London in October 1998. Ambler published 23 novels total, 19 under his own name and four in collaboration Eric Amber died in London on October 22, 1998, at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Eric Ambler
Intrigue: The Great Spy Novels of Eric Ambler: Journey Into Fear; A Coffin for Dimitrios; Cause for Alarm; Background… (1952) 58 copies, 1 review
A Coffin for Dimitrios/Judgement on Deltchev/Passage of Arms: Three Complete Novels in One Volume (1992) 32 copies
Great Cases of Scotland Yard, Volume One (1): THOMAS NEILL, CREAM, POISONER; FLANNEL FOOT; STRANGE CASE OF STANLEY… (1997) — Introduction — 32 copies
Modern Classics of Suspense: Rebecca, Death and the Sky Above, The Thin Man, The Circular Staircase, Above Suspicion, A… (1968) 17 copies
Great Mystery Books, 10 Volumes (Journey into Fear, The 39 Steps, And Then There Were None, Maltese Falcon, The Nine… (1967) — Contributor — 5 copies
The Classic Eric Ambler Box Set (The Care of Time, The Schirmer Inheritance, Send No More Roses) (2015) 2 copies
Schach dem Verbrechen. Authentische Fälle aus den Archiven von Scotland Yard: 2 Bde. (1999) 2 copies
Highly Dangerous [1950 film] — Screenwriter — 1 copy
Insolito peligro 1 copy
Máscara de Dimítrios, A 1 copy
המסכה של דימיטריוס 1 copy
El gran negocio de Girija 1 copy
The October Man [1947 film] 1 copy
Masque de dimitrios (le) 1 copy
Belgrade, 1926 [Short story] 1 copy
Tocaia grande 1 copy
Ambler Eric 1 copy
Cloak And Dagger 1 copy
70 hodin pro špiona 1 copy
El paso del tiempo 1 copy
تابوتی برای دیمتریوس 1 copy
Η μάσκα του Δημητρίου 1 copy
ΒΡΟΜΙΚΗ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ 1 copy
Viagem para o Medo - eBook 1 copy
Viagem para o Medo 1 copy
Correndo Contra o Tempo 1 copy
O LEVANTINO 1 copy
Associated Works
To the Queen's Taste: The First Supplement to 101 Years Entertainment Consisting of the Best Stories Published in the… (1946) — Contributor — 24 copies
Journey Into Fear [1975 film] — Original novel — 1 copy
The Penguin Film Review 9 — Contributor — 1 copy
Hånden i sandet og andre virkelige kriminalsager skildret af berømte kriminalforfattere (1974) 1 copy, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Ambler, Eric Clifford
- Other names
- Reed, Eliot
- Birthdate
- 1909-06-28
- Date of death
- 1998-10-22
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Country (for map)
- England, UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
Switzerland - Education
- University of London
- Occupations
- scriptwriter
novelist - Organizations
- British Army (Filmmaking unit)
- Awards and honors
- Cartier Diamond Dagger (1986)
MWA Grand Master (1975)
Order of the British Empire (Officer, 1981) - Short biography
- Eric Ambler was born in London in 1909. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked at an engineering firm and wrote copy for an advertising agency. His first novel was published in 1936. He was awarded two Gold Daggers, a Silver Dagger, and a Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain, was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers Association of America, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. In addition to his novels, Ambler wrote a number of screenplays, including A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination. Eric Ambler died in 1998.
Members
Reviews
Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler
I read this a long time ago and remember absolutely nothing. As an early example of the modern suspense novel, Ambler really does a masterful job. Graham is an English munitions engineer working with the Turkish government on a time-sensitive project with the specter of WWII looming. Nazi agents have other ideas. Graham's panic is palpable as he realizes that he is in extreme danger. There is a blowsy love interest that makes it feel even seedier and darker. Excellent characters, excellent plot, excellent atmosphere.… (more)
Un thriller brillante. Dimitros es un personaje fascinante en su absoluta maldad (No es de extrañar que atraiga de esa forma al protagonista) y ese submundo de personajes no menos deleznables (Pero menos astutos) que surge a su alrededor no le va a la zaga. Además, es sorprendente como una novela que es fundamentalmente diálogo es capaz de transmitir tanta tensión y enganchar al lector de esa forma. Lo único que me flojea es el personaje de Látimer, el protagonista que más que un personaje es el catalizador de la historia y carece de una personalidad relevante, aunque supongo que está diseñado así pensando en favorecer que el lector se identifique con él.… (more)
Un thriller brillante. Dimitros es un personaje fascinante en su absoluta maldad (No es de extrañar que atraiga de esa forma al protagonista) y ese submundo de personajes no menos deleznables (Pero menos astutos) que surge a su alrededor no le va a la zaga. Además, es sorprendente como una novela que es fundamentalmente diálogo es capaz de transmitir tanta tensión y enganchar al lector de esa forma. Lo único que me flojea es el personaje de Látimer, el protagonista que más que un personaje es el catalizador de la historia y carece de una personalidad relevante, aunque supongo que está diseñado así pensando en favorecer que el lector se identifique con él.… (more)
My copy of this one is in a Penguin Modern Classic edition, with that seductive eau de nil spine. Maybe I'm just being impressed by the cover, but I think this is the first of the run that I would recommend even to those without much interest in the genre.
If it's not the cover, it might be the setting that's getting to me. We seem to have spent a lot of time recently in dingy, straitened parts of southern England, and so it's a pleasant change to be instead in the South China Sea in the post-war era. I really don't know as much about this time and place as I might, but the picture painted here is of a febrile set of countries, bubbling with revolutionaries of various kinds, jockeying for political and territorial position to take advantage of the inevitable withdrawal of British colonial power—but, importantly, safe and exotic enough to allow enterprise and attract tourists.
The plot concerns the arms of the title: an abandoned cache of weapons, discovered by a lowly Indian clerk, Girija. He wants to sell them. He needs a middleman, for which he enlists a fairly shady family of Chinese businessmen with connections around the Sea. The need a dupe to launder the arms and present them for sale to a group of guerrillas, for which they enlist an overconfident American cruise-tourist and his wife. The plot follows the progress of this convoluted deal.
There are two things that are done wonderfully as the plot unfolds, and these are the things that lead me to recommend the book widely. The first is structural. The book starts with Girija and ends with him, but in between the focus shifts further and further out from him, towards the Chinese and then the Americans, and then back again in the opposite direction. It's as if the book slowly takes in a big breath of air, holds if for a while, and lets it out again. It's a very, very neat structural trick if you can pull it off, and Ambler does.
His other neat trick is tonal. We start in a faintly comic mood, and we barely notice as things become more and more serious, until they're suddenly somewhere close to horrific. A lot of books (and perhaps even more films) aim for this shift, but don't manage it nearly as well; you can feel the wrench as the ratchet is turned. This is much more subtly done, more like that poor frog you hear of in the slowly heating water.
You can see from these two things why Ambler was highly regarded in his time and considered worthy of Penguin reissue today (my copy is from 2023, though whoever had it before me gave it quite some reading). Both Greene and Le Carré are mentioned in the blurb, and you can also see how he stands somewhat in between the two—the righteous adventuring of Greene dissolving slowly into the amoral stalemate of Le Carré (perhaps that's unfair. I really should re-read some of the tougher Greene).
One might worry that the combination of settings, peoples, and author (very much British, very much 1950s) would lead inevitably to a degree of stereotyping, if not outright racism, sufficient to spoil all the good things of the book. But I think Ambler still gets away with it. There certainly is national stereotyping, some vital to the plot, some not (there's a French character who seems only to be French to afford an opportunity to poke fun at the French), but it's not egregious for the most part, and it's probably the Americans who come off worst. In fact, at a couple of points, there is some subtle stuff about who is offended by what that shows at least some authorial awareness of how the sausage is being made. I even wonder if one could read the book as allegorical: it seems plausible that the preoccupations and preferences of the various characters are synecdochical for their nations' policies and politics in the region, though I would need to do a fair bit of reading to substantiate that hunch.
Anyway, the point is, one could find offence here if one were looking for it, but one can also certainly find a very well-structured, tonally assured, tightly written book. I enjoyed it very much and I certainly intend to read more Ambler. Give it a go if a copy comes your way.… (more)
If it's not the cover, it might be the setting that's getting to me. We seem to have spent a lot of time recently in dingy, straitened parts of southern England, and so it's a pleasant change to be instead in the South China Sea in the post-war era. I really don't know as much about this time and place as I might, but the picture painted here is of a febrile set of countries, bubbling with revolutionaries of various kinds, jockeying for political and territorial position to take advantage of the inevitable withdrawal of British colonial power—but, importantly, safe and exotic enough to allow enterprise and attract tourists.
The plot concerns the arms of the title: an abandoned cache of weapons, discovered by a lowly Indian clerk, Girija. He wants to sell them. He needs a middleman, for which he enlists a fairly shady family of Chinese businessmen with connections around the Sea. The need a dupe to launder the arms and present them for sale to a group of guerrillas, for which they enlist an overconfident American cruise-tourist and his wife. The plot follows the progress of this convoluted deal.
There are two things that are done wonderfully as the plot unfolds, and these are the things that lead me to recommend the book widely. The first is structural. The book starts with Girija and ends with him, but in between the focus shifts further and further out from him, towards the Chinese and then the Americans, and then back again in the opposite direction. It's as if the book slowly takes in a big breath of air, holds if for a while, and lets it out again. It's a very, very neat structural trick if you can pull it off, and Ambler does.
His other neat trick is tonal. We start in a faintly comic mood, and we barely notice as things become more and more serious, until they're suddenly somewhere close to horrific. A lot of books (and perhaps even more films) aim for this shift, but don't manage it nearly as well; you can feel the wrench as the ratchet is turned. This is much more subtly done, more like that poor frog you hear of in the slowly heating water.
You can see from these two things why Ambler was highly regarded in his time and considered worthy of Penguin reissue today (my copy is from 2023, though whoever had it before me gave it quite some reading). Both Greene and Le Carré are mentioned in the blurb, and you can also see how he stands somewhat in between the two—the righteous adventuring of Greene dissolving slowly into the amoral stalemate of Le Carré (perhaps that's unfair. I really should re-read some of the tougher Greene).
One might worry that the combination of settings, peoples, and author (very much British, very much 1950s) would lead inevitably to a degree of stereotyping, if not outright racism, sufficient to spoil all the good things of the book. But I think Ambler still gets away with it. There certainly is national stereotyping, some vital to the plot, some not (there's a French character who seems only to be French to afford an opportunity to poke fun at the French), but it's not egregious for the most part, and it's probably the Americans who come off worst. In fact, at a couple of points, there is some subtle stuff about who is offended by what that shows at least some authorial awareness of how the sausage is being made. I even wonder if one could read the book as allegorical: it seems plausible that the preoccupations and preferences of the various characters are synecdochical for their nations' policies and politics in the region, though I would need to do a fair bit of reading to substantiate that hunch.
Anyway, the point is, one could find offence here if one were looking for it, but one can also certainly find a very well-structured, tonally assured, tightly written book. I enjoyed it very much and I certainly intend to read more Ambler. Give it a go if a copy comes your way.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 87
- Also by
- 38
- Members
- 9,295
- Popularity
- #2,595
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 187
- ISBNs
- 676
- Languages
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- Favorited
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