Cause for Alarm, by Eric Ambler
Cause for Alarm, by Eric Ambler
The car jerked forward. The wheels bumped twice and came to rest against the curb. The man in front got out again and again walked back. When he returned to the car he was wiping his fingers on his handkerchief.
“Sta bene?” said the driver.
“Bene”. He got back into his seat and slammed the door. “As soon as we have reported to headquarters,” he said as the car moved slowly along the tram lines across the main road, “I shall drink a bottle of cognac. This fog gets on to my chest.”
It was twenty minutes before a child ran screaming to his mother that there was a man lying bleeding in the street.
Long before Ian Fleming and John LeCarre, Eric Ambler made a name for himself in the spy thriller genre. Unlike the usual worlds of super-secret agents with gadgets and chess-master tactical genius, the typical Ambler story features a civilian Everyman who gets suddenly caught up in something way over his head and tries to make sense out of things while remaining alive. His best novels are Journey Into Fear and A Coffin for Demitrius.
Cause for Alarm is short, and typical Ambler. The protagonist, an out of work technical engineer, is driven by necessity to accept a job in Mussolini’s Italy, managing a factory that, among other things, is making munitions for the fascists. His predecessor in the job was found by that child in the bit quoted above.
Pretty soon, a stranger comes to him with a proposition involving selling information about the factory. Another man comes to him with another proposition. Each one tells him not to trust the other. His subordinate at the factory is following him around, his mail is steamed open, and the Italian (ordinary) police begin to give him a hard time while the (secret) police are more menacing still. Who should he trust? Anybody at all? Beatings, blackmail, and a desperate run for the border involving several disguises and dangerous train rides ensue.
It’s a little tame by modern thriller standards, but a quick read and very suspenseful. If you like Hitchcockian spy thrillers with Everyman heroes, this may well be for you.
The car jerked forward. The wheels bumped twice and came to rest against the curb. The man in front got out again and again walked back. When he returned to the car he was wiping his fingers on his handkerchief.
“Sta bene?” said the driver.
“Bene”. He got back into his seat and slammed the door. “As soon as we have reported to headquarters,” he said as the car moved slowly along the tram lines across the main road, “I shall drink a bottle of cognac. This fog gets on to my chest.”
It was twenty minutes before a child ran screaming to his mother that there was a man lying bleeding in the street.
Long before Ian Fleming and John LeCarre, Eric Ambler made a name for himself in the spy thriller genre. Unlike the usual worlds of super-secret agents with gadgets and chess-master tactical genius, the typical Ambler story features a civilian Everyman who gets suddenly caught up in something way over his head and tries to make sense out of things while remaining alive. His best novels are Journey Into Fear and A Coffin for Demitrius.
Cause for Alarm is short, and typical Ambler. The protagonist, an out of work technical engineer, is driven by necessity to accept a job in Mussolini’s Italy, managing a factory that, among other things, is making munitions for the fascists. His predecessor in the job was found by that child in the bit quoted above.
Pretty soon, a stranger comes to him with a proposition involving selling information about the factory. Another man comes to him with another proposition. Each one tells him not to trust the other. His subordinate at the factory is following him around, his mail is steamed open, and the Italian (ordinary) police begin to give him a hard time while the (secret) police are more menacing still. Who should he trust? Anybody at all? Beatings, blackmail, and a desperate run for the border involving several disguises and dangerous train rides ensue.
It’s a little tame by modern thriller standards, but a quick read and very suspenseful. If you like Hitchcockian spy thrillers with Everyman heroes, this may well be for you.