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When his camera is swapped with one whose film contains sensitive photos of secret naval installations in Toulon, Vadassy comes under suspicion of being a Gestapo agent. At the beginning of the Second World War, British engineer Howard Epitaph for a Spy has been involved in high-level talks with the Turkish government regarding arms manufacturing, an alliance which displeases German spies. After surviving an assassination attempt in his hotel room in Istanbul, Graham changes his route home to England and boards a passenger steamer across the Mediterranean to Genoa. However, although Graham initially believes he is safe, it quickly transpires that the other passengers on board are not all as they seem. Neither Vadassy or Graham are professional spies and nor do they readily embrace their new positions as amateur sleuths. Filed under Books. Like Like. Like Liked by 1 person. Glad to see that you enjoyed these novels by Ambler — they sound excellent. Hi there! Thank you for some awsome tips! Well, there are now 14 in all, the first is called The Night Soldier and this has become the generic title of the whole series. If starting from the beginning is not your bag, then I would strongly recommend these three — The World at Night, which is set in Paris and is similar territory to the film The Last Metro though they are not remotely relatedKingdom of Shadows which is set in Paris inbut covers other places including Vienna. The last one in this recommendation is The Polish Spy. However, I am loth to pick these out, since I have been a committed reader since the very first one. They are clever, ambitious, frightening and compulsive. Let me know what you think. I forgot to mention that some characters appear in more than one book. Jean Casson makes his first reluctant entry into the world of espionage in The World at Night, and Epitaph for a Spy adventures continue in Red Gold. There are other examples. I just finished Journey Into Fear. I Epitaph for a Spy word today that I have an Amazon gift card due to the settlement of a class action lawsuit over the pricing of books. Think I will use it on some more Eric Ambler! You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new Epitaph for a Spy via Epitaph for a Spy. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Email Address:. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to A Little Blog of Books with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. A Little Blog of Books. Skip to content. Like this: Like Loading June 5, at pm. Yes, and good to see that his books are still in print today! They sound exciting reads. Thanks for reviewing. I love Eric Ambler — have you read Light of Day? June 7, at pm. June 6, at am. Great — thanks for the recommendations! June 6, Epitaph for a Spy pm. Bookabye Baby. June 8, at am. June 12, at pm. Thanks, I hope you enjoy them! Lilyn G. June 11, at pm. This looks really good! June 21, at pm. June 23, at pm. Good choice! Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Blog via Epitaph for a Spy Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 9, other followers. Search for:. The Rise of eBooks: evil or essential? Does My Blog Harm Literature? My Most Anticipated Books of The Man Booker Prize Longlist Create a website or blog at WordPress. Post to Cancel. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Dangerous games | Books | The Guardian

Looking back now, I marvel at my stupidity; I was pathetically ineffectual. Maybe the Epitaph for a Spy feature of the six thriller novels Eric Ambler published in the late s is that they are all set in Epitaph for a Spy under the shadow of war: the fictional Balkan country Ixania in The Dark FrontierAustria and Czechoslovakia in Uncommon Dangerand the Epitaph for a Spy of France here in Epitaph. This non-English setting gives them a particularly brooding, stifling, paranoid atmosphere; everyone is scheming against everyone else, the police are menacing, strangers whisper in foreign languages, and over everything a vast catastrophe is looming. Here Liesp. The story is told by Vadassy in the first person which gives greater access to his engulfing sensations of amazement, fear and panic as the situation unfolds, and also to his serio- comic attempts to play-act the tough guy and fathom his fellow guests. The narrative is kicked off quite simply: Vadassy is on a three-week holiday in the south of France from his language school in Paris. Turns out the roll of film on his camera contains incriminating photos of the naval defences at Toulon!! Somehow, at the hotel, his camera has been swapped for that of a spy. Or so he says!!! Grudgingly, the police release him on orders from a Naval Intelligence man, on condition that Vadassy return to the hotel and find out who the real spy is…. Almost all the novel is set in this sleepy French hotel in which there are ten or so guests, from different nationalities, different ages etc, all with different quirks and oddities, Epitaph for a Spy any one of them could be the suspect!! This is more like a chamber piece. Ambler was consciously revolting against the hard-eyed he-men which featured in the now-forgotten spy fiction of the s, the epigones of John Buchan and Bulldog Drummond and E. His protagonists are very ordinary men and they react with very ordinary fear to the situations they find themselves in. I think that if anyone had suggested to me at that moment that I should not be able to leave on the Sunday, I should have laughed disbelievingly. But there would have been hysteria in that laugh for, as I sat on the floor beside my open suitcase, fear was clutching at the mechanism inside my chest, making my heart thud and my breathing short and sharp as though I had been running. I kept swallowing saliva, feeling for some curious reason that by doing so I would stop my heart beating so. It made me terribly thirsty and after a while I got up, went to the wash-basin and drank some water out of the tooth glass. I was so engrossed with these significant discoveries that I did not hear the footsteps until they were practically outside the door. Even if I had have heard them I doubt whether I should have been able to do anything more. As it was, I just had time to cram the Epitaph for a Spy back into the pocket and bundle the suit into the cupboard behind me before the handle of the door turned. In the Epitaph for a Spy split seconds that followed, my brain and body seemed to go numb. I stood and gazed stupidly at the handle. I wanted to shout, hide in the cupboard, jump out of the window, scramble under the bed. But I did none of those things. I just gaped. I went downstairs feeling several kinds of fool. Instead of doing the pumping I had been pumped. Far from extracting valuable information I had been forced into a defensive position and answered questions as meekly as if I had been in the witness box… As usual, I began to think of the crushing things I ought to have said. The trouble was that my brain moved far too slowly. I was a dullard, a half-wit. Ambler repeats his war-of-all-against-all worldview, the epidemic of spying and industrial espionage in the feverish atmosphere of the late s. All over Europe, all over the world, men were spying. The world was getting ready to go to war. For the cannon-makers and for the spies, business was good. Miss Marple Mislays A Camera might be closer in tone. The novel was made into a movie titled Hotel Reservestarring James Mason. It was in production at Denham Studios at the same time as the Epitaph for a Spy morale-booster which Ambler scripted, The Way Ahead. Ambler has some harsh words for it. Though I later became a friend and neighbour of James Mason, he could never speak of Hotel Reserve without a shudder. In his autobiography and in a book about all his Epitaph for a Spy he tried, almost successfully, not to speak about it at all. I shared Epitaph for a Spy aversion to it. The film had a rubbishy script, bad sets and an unsuitable director. Here Lies, p. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. Epitaph for a Spy are commenting using your Twitter account. You Epitaph for a Spy commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Email Address:. Follow Books and Boots. Plot The narrative is kicked off quite simply: Vadassy is on a three-week holiday in the south of France from his language school in Paris. Grudgingly, the police release him on orders from a Naval Intelligence man, on condition that Vadassy return to the hotel and find out who the real spy is… Agatha Christie Almost all the novel is set in this sleepy French hotel in which there are ten Epitaph for a Spy so guests, from different nationalities, different ages etc, all with different quirks and oddities, and any one of them could be the suspect!! Fear… Ambler was consciously revolting against the hard-eyed he-men which featured in the now-forgotten spy fiction of the s, the epigones of John Buchan and Bulldog Drummond and E. The cops give Vadassy three days to find the real spy and although, in his mind, he is full of worry, in the external world not much actually happens: he gets to know the other guests, hears their stories, plays some billiards, has breakfast, lunch and dinner, swims in the sea. No corpses. No real violence. No car chases. No change of scene at all. Vadassy, though given a foreign name, nationality and facility with languages, is in fact a very English nitwit. Rate this:. Like this: Like Loading Leave a comment. Posted in BooksNovelThriller. Leave a comment Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Search for:. Blog at WordPress. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Eric Ambler: Epitaph for a Spy | Heloise Merlin's Weblog

Look Inside. 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. Eric Ambler is often said to have invented the modern suspense novel. These novels were touted for… More about Eric Ambler. When you buy a book, we donate a book. Sign in. Puzzles and Games to Play at Home. Read An Excerpt. Feb 05, ISBN Epitaph for a Spy to Cart. Also available from:. Dec 10, ISBN Available from:. Paperback —. About Epitaph for a Spy 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. Also by Eric Ambler. Epitaph for a Spy Eric Ambler Eric Ambler is often said to have invented the modern suspense novel. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. The Schirmer Inheritance. Cause for Alarm. House of the Hunted. Shadows on the Lake. Amneris Magella and Giovanni Cocco. Edie Investigates. Nick Harkaway. Minette Walters. Judgment Epitaph for a Spy Deltchev. Black Maps. Peter Spiegelman. The Epitaph for a Spy of Darkness. Ruth Rendell. Background to Danger. Journey Into Fear. Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. The Fire Pit Faroes novel 3. The Bone Seeker. The Book of Spies. Stuart Epitaph for a Spy 6 Stone Barrington Novels. Stuart Woods. A Kind of Anger. The Anatomy of Deception. Lawrence Goldstone. Passage of Arms. Montaro Caine. Sidney Poitier. The Information Officer. The Last Dickens. Matthew Pearl. Cancel All Our Vows. John D. Speak of the Devil. Richard Hawke. Where Is Janice Gantry? Death of a Nightingale. Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbol. Our Picnics in the Sun. The Drowner. The Sword of Justice. Leif G. The Line. A Demon Epitaph for a Spy My View. Related Articles. Looking for More Great Reads? Download Hi Res. LitFlash The eBooks you want at the lowest prices. Read it Forward Read it first. Pass it on! Stay in Touch Sign up. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later. Become a Member Start earning points for buying books!