Books by Eric Ambler
Topkapi
by Eric Ambler
This really is the funniest, best-written book ever. It’s about a wee silly man called Arthur, a sneak thief, who gets caught up in a plan to rob the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.
Judgment on Deltchev
by Eric Ambler
There are some wonderful descriptions of what it was like to be a journalist trying to operate in a Communist capital and some marvellous moments of seediness which Graham Green couldn’t have outdone. I can’t recommend it highly enough to anybody who’s interested in both in thrillers and in politics.
Journey into Fear
by Eric Ambler
It’s set in World War II and what’s amazing is that it was written in 1940 and he didn’t know what the outcome of the war would be. We know Germany lost and everything was OK, but if you were writing in 1940 you’d think: ‘Cripes, these people look very scary and good and we don’t really look very good at all.’
A Coffin for Dimitrios
by Eric Ambler
"Eric Ambler is the grandfather of the serious spy novel. Ambler was the same generation as Graham Greene, and he was, like a lot of educated people at that time, a kind of proto-Marxist, a socialist. He believed that he could use the thriller not only to entertain but also as a political tool, to say something about the state of the nation"
Interviews where books by Eric Ambler were recommended
The best books on Espionage, recommended by Charles Cumming
Leading British spy writer Charles Cumming found his vocation at 25 after he was approached by MI6. He says that experience, brief but interesting, was crying out to be dramatised
The Best Classic British Thrillers, recommended by Matt Lynn
Author Matt Lynn says that good thrillers need a sense of foreboding and tension – and a brilliant central character. “The thriller has always been a very political genre, a kind of snapshot in time”
The Best Anti-Communist Thrillers, recommended by Peter Hitchens
Right-wing journalist and political commentator Peter Hitchens says the Left has been liberated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and that speech is probably freer in modern Russia than it is in Britain. He recommends some great anti-Communist thrillers.
The Best Cosy Mysteries, recommended by M C Beaton
North Scotland is wonderful countryside, a marvellous setting for a murder. The wind just screams from horizon to horizon – it’s like living in a speeded-up nature film. You open up the kitchen door and catch a passing sheep…
