A likeable English armaments engineer, who we only know as ‘Graham’ (his surname), is in Istanbul talking to the Turkish government about their naval gun requirements, when he is attacked in his hotel room in what at first appears to be a robbery gone wrong. This being Ambler, Graham has in fact stumbled into a spy story as the central character.
Ambler’s formula is that an innocent Englishman suddenly finds himself at the centre of a story that involves people of several nationalities, ranging from friendly, through ambivalent to hostile. Written in 1940, the hostiles in Journey into Fear are Germans, while the friendlies are made up of a stereotypical collection of French, Spanish and Turks.
It’s tempting to be quite hard on Ambler’s plot and the rather clumsy way he has of trying to spring surprises on you. He’s also very keen on the Agatha Christie technique of having a limited number of known characters confined to a specific space, in this case a ship bound for Genoa (Italy had not yet entered the war on the Germans’ side). But I think it would be wrong to do so. There are the seeds of many spy clichés here, but Ambler can’t be blamed for the way his techniques have been used since he used them.
Like Epitaph for a Spy, Journey into Fear is an enjoyable thriller, very much of its time, but a nice diversion nonetheless.
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