Cause for Alarm

Cause for Alarm
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030794994X

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He’s engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiancé points out the Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and he figures he’ll be able to endure Milan for a year, long enough to save some money. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth of his predecessor’s death and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes it’s not so simple to just do the job he’s paid to do in fascist Italy on the eve of a world war.

Epitaph for a Spy

Epitaph for a Spy
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2008-12-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307484343

When Josef Vadassy arrives at the Hotel de la Reserve at the end of his Riviera holiday, he is simply looking forward to a few more days of relaxation before returning to Paris. But in St. Gatien, on the eve of World War II, everyone is suspect–the American brother and sister, the expatriate Brits, and the German gentleman traveling under at least one assumed name. When the film he drops off at the chemist reveals photographs he has not taken, Vadassy finds himself the object of intense suspicion. The result is anything but the rest he had been hoping for.

Background to Danger

Background to Danger
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307949931

Kenton's career as a journalist depended on his facility with languages, his knowledge of European politics, and his quick judgment. Where his judgment sometimes failed him was in his personal life. When he finds himself on a train bound for Austria with insufficient funds after a bad night of gambling, he jumps at the chance to earn a fee to help a refugee smuggle securities across the border. He soon discovers that the documents he holds have a more than monetary value, and that European politics has more twists and turns than the most convoluted newspaper account.

Passage of Arms

Passage of Arms
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030795000X

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 trip, see some of the more out-of-the-way places. But the cruise they were on was turning out to be a bore. So when the gracious Mr. Tan requests that Greg take a side trip to Singapore to resolve a bureaucratic detail involving a consignment of small arms, Greg is surprisingly receptive. All he has to do is sign some papers, he’s told, and he’ll be paid a handsome fee. And everything does go smoothly, until it comes to getting a check co-signed by the rebel leader…

State of Siege

State of Siege
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307949990

All in all Steve Fraser had enjoyed his three-year stint in the former Dutch Southeast Asian colony of Sunda, and he’d been well compensated. But now he was looking forward to a last weekend in the capital before heading home. But Sunda was newly independent, and not entirely stable. An opposition faction with fundamentalist Islamic leanings was set on overthrowing the provisional government. And instead of enjoying a sybaritic weekend with the Eurasian beauty Rosalie, Fraser finds himself trapped with her by a fanatical group who’ve taken over the country’s radio station and made their headquarters in his friend Jebb’s apartment. As the government launches a counterattack, the couple’s survival depends on their ability to dodge bullets and the shifting loyalties of the coup’s lieutenants.

The Light of Day

The Light of Day
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307950018

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. But Harper proves to be more the spider than the fly when he catches Simpson riffling his wallet for traveler’s checks. Soon Simpson finds himself blackmailed into driving a suspicious car across the Turkish border. Then, when he is caught again, this time by the police, he faces a choice: cooperate with the Turks and spy on his erstwhile colleagues or end up in one of Turkey’s notorious prisons. The authorities suspect an attempted coup, but Harper and his gang of international jewel thieves have planned something both less sinister and much, much more audacious.

The Mask of Dimitrios

The Mask of Dimitrios
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780241672259

Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage series A crime novelist has found the perfect subject - but it may cost him his life English writer Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when a police inspector tells him about the infamous master criminal Dimitrios, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Immediately fascinated, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps across Europe to gather material for a new book, but instead finds himself descending into a terrifying underworld of international espionage, Balkan drug dealers, unscrupulous businessmen and fatal treachery - one he may not be able to escape.

Journey Into Fear

Journey Into Fear
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Berkley
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1983
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780425063910

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 passengers are a couple of Nazi assassins intent on preventing his returning to England with plans for a Turkish defense system, the seductive cabaret dancer and her manager husband, and a number of surprising allies. Thrilling, intense, and masterfully plotted, Journey Into Fear is a classic suspense tale from one of the founders of the genre.

The Care of Time

The Care of Time
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307950093

One Monday, Robert Halliday receives a bomb threat in the mail. Two days later, the bomb arrives—accompanied by an offer of employment from one Karliss Zander, an international fixer. Unless Halliday agrees to help him edit the memoirs of a 19th century Russian terrorist and ghostwrite an exposé of modern terrorist governments, Zander will detonate the bomb. For the sake of self-preservation, Halliday joins the project—but quickly discovers that Zander requires more than mere literary assistance: He and his daughter are in mortal peril from a Middle Eastern terrorist group. Now tangled in this massive international web of danger, Halliday wonders if it wouldn’t have been far less painful if that bomb had just gone off. The Care of Time, Eric Ambler’s final novel, is a carefully constructed, utterly absorbing story of intrigue and suspense, one of the most acclaimed works of his more than sixty year career.