There is nothing more satisfying than reading a book while sipping a hot cup of tea.
The time is the mid-1930s. The moment when Robert Oppenheimer would declare grandiosely: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" is still a decade away. A young man writing his first novel, however, envisages the atomic bomb becoming the most coveted weapon of destruction and unscrupulous men fighting to get hold of it. … Continue reading #1936 Club: The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler
The only kind of spy stories that I am fond of reading are where the world is not divided between those wearing white hats and black hats and where the emphasis is on the emotional estrangement and entanglements of the secret service agent(s), something like Somerset Maugham's Ashenden or Graham Greene's The Human Factor.And thus … Continue reading Forgotten Book: Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
The Schirmer Inheritance was the second novel written by Eric Ambler after the second world war and it reflects the tragedies and triumphs of its times.During the Russo-Prussian-Napoleonic Wars, a Sergeant in the Dragoons of Ansbach, Franz Schirmer, deserts his unit, and eventually marries, becomes a prosperous business man, and raises a large family. The … Continue reading Forgotten Book: The Schirmer Inheritance by Eric Ambler (1953)
The second world war is generally said to have began on this date in 1939. This year I have been reading quite a few mysteries that have the war setting the context of the novel. Elizabeth Farrars' Murder Among Friends which is set in London during the time of Blitz has already been reviewed. Here … Continue reading 1st september: War and Crime
Eric Ambler (1909-1998) is a British writer known for his thrillers and spy novels. Last year I read him for the first time when I read his most famous book A Coffin for Dimitrios, a book that almost inevitably features in top mystery lists.In 1962, Ambler created the character of Arthur Abdel Simpson, a British-Egyptian, … Continue reading Forgotten Books: The Arthur Abdel Simpson Novels by Eric Ambler
Colonel Haki was slowly turning the pages inside the folder, and on his way was a look that Latimer had not seen there before. It was the look of the expert attending to the business he understands perfectly. There was a sort of watchful repose in his face that reminded Latimer of a very old … Continue reading Chasing a Crooked Shadow: Eric Ambler’s Dimitrios
a hot cup of pleasure 