Product Description

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He’s engaged to be married and the employment market in Britain in 1937 is pretty slim. So when his fiancée points out the position with an English armaments manufacturer in Italy, he jumps at the chance. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth about his predecessor’s departure and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes that it’s not so simple just to do the job he’s paid for – not in fascist Italy, on the eve of a world war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26211 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The classic 1930s thrillers of Eric Ambler took the crudely patriotic certainties of John Buchan and gave them a salutary shake. Nick Marlow, the hero of Cause for Alarm is an engineer who likes to think of himself as a plain man, above politics; when he takes a sales job in Mussolini's Fascist Italy, it never occurs to him as relevant that his predecessor was killed by a hit-and-run driver or that the boring machines he sells might be used for the making of armaments. Nor does he regard the politics of his clerk as of interest, nor think of the rouged Yugoslav general Vagas as anything more than a friendly buffoon. Before he knows where he is, a web is tightening about him and the only reliable friend he has is Zaleshoff, an American businessman, oddly keen to educate him in the ways of the world ... This is a superb piece of propaganda fiction from the popular front era; the things that made it work then as a thriller--its hairs-breadth escapes, its chunks of spycraft, its atmospheric portrayal of dark city streets and dangerous high passes--are as fresh-minted as they ever were. --Roz Kaveney

Review
'Eric Ambler is a master of his craft' Sunday Telegraph 'If you want to experience the feel of the Continent in the 1930s, you will find few better guides' - Robert Harris

From the Publisher
'Ambler is a master of his craft' Sunday Telegraph
'Ambler is a master of his craft' Sunday TelegraphERIC AMBLER Eric Ambler began his writing career in the early 1930s, and quickly established a reputation as a thriller writer of extraordinary depth and originality. He is often credited as the inventor of the modern political thriller and John le Carre once described him as ‘the source on which we all draw.’

Ambler began his working life at an engineering firm, then as a copywriter at an advertising agency, while in his spare time he worked on his ambition to become a playwright. His first novel was published in 1936 and as his reputation as a novelist grew he turned to writing full time. During the war he was seconded to the Army Film Unit, where he wrote, among other projects, The Way Ahead with Peter Ustinov.

He moved to Hollywood in 1957 and during his eleven years there scripted some memorable films, including A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination.

In a career spanning over sixty years, Eric Ambler wrote nineteen novels and was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award for Passage of Arms in 1960. He was married to Joan Harrison, who wrote or co-wrote many of Alfred Hitchcock’s screenplays - in fact Hitchcock organized their wedding. Eric Ambler died in London in October 1998.

THE PAN CLASSIC CRIME SERIES The idea for the Pan Classic Crime series was sparked by two separate incidents – my struggle to find a new copy of MALICE AFORETHOUGHT by Francis Iles (one of my favourite crime novels), and a newspaper article about Eric Ambler which claimed that none of his novels was available in the UK. I then began six months of research to discover which other classics had shockingly been allowed to go out of print (concentrating particularly on novels published 1930-1960). And so the Pan Classic Crime series was born, launching in April 1999 with six titles – including two by Eric Ambler and, of course, MALICE AFORETHOUGHT.

Before my research began I must admit my knowledge of pre-1970s crime fiction was restricted to the giants – Doyle, Christie, Highsmith, Chandler. And I must admit, too, that I was hesitant about how well these ‘lost treasures’ would stand up to modern crime fiction. How wrong I was – the novels I read and am now publishing were remarkably sophisticated, skilful, innovative, insightful, and full of character and wit. I felt suitably ashamed for having doubted them! By July this year we will have published 18 titles in the series. One of our aims has been introduce new readers to these authors and, with this in mind, each edition is introduced by a well-known crime writer of today. For example, Colin Dexter, P.D. James, Robert Goddard and Robert Harris have all contributed to the series. What pleased me the most was the phrase that popped up again and again in the letters that accompanied their introductions: ‘I’d forgotten just how good they were!’

Also in the series

1) The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Harris

2) Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles With an introduction by Colin Dexter

3) The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake With an introduction by P.D. James

4) Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Harris

5) Green for Danger by Christianna Brand With an introduction by Lindsey Davis

6) Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin With an introduction by Jonathan Gash

7) Before the Fact by Francis Iles With an introduction by Colin Dexter

8) Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Harris

9) Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare With an introduction by Frances Fyfield

10) Last Seen Wearing . . . by Hillary Waugh With an introduction by Reginald Hill

11) Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Goddard

12) A Tangled Web by Nicholas Blake With an introduction by P.D. James

13) Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin With an introduction by Jonathan Gash

14) Judgment on Deltchev by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Goddard

15) My Name is Michael Sibley by John Bingham With an introduction by John le Carre

16) Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler With an introduction by Robert Goddard

17) Death of a Doll by Hilda Lawrence (pub July 2001) With an introduction by Minette Walters

18) Five Roundabouts to Heaven by John Bingham (pub July 2001) With an introduction by John le Carre

Customer Reviews

Espionage: Realistic, Vivid and Noir!!
To read or not to read the great spy novels of Eric Ambler? That is the question most people ignore because they are not familiar with Mr. Ambler and his particularly talent.

Mr. Ambler has always had this problem. As Alfred Hitchcock noted in his introduction to Intrigue (an omnibus volume containing Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Cause for Alarm and Background to Danger), "Perhaps this was the volume that brought Mr. Ambler to the attention of the public that make best-sellers. They had been singularly inattentive until its appearance -- I suppose only God knows why." He goes on to say, "They had not even heeded the critics, who had said, from the very first, that Mr. Ambler had given new life and fresh viewpoint to the art of the spy novel -- an art supposedly threadbare and certainly cliché-infested."

So what's new and different about Eric Ambler writing? His heroes are ordinary people with whom almost any reader can identify, which puts you in the middle of a turmoil of emotions. His bad guys are characteristic of those who did the type of dirty deeds described in the book. His angels on the sidelines are equally realistic to the historical context. The backgrounds, histories and plot lines are finely nuanced into the actual evolution of the areas and events described during that time. In a way, these books are like historical fiction, except they describe deceit and betrayal rather than love and affection. From a distance of over 60 years, we read these books today as a way to step back into the darkest days of the past and relive them vividly. You can almost see and feel a dark hand raised to strike you in the back as you read one of his book's later pages. In a way, these stories are like a more realistic version of what Dashiell Hammett wrote as applied to European espionage.

Since Mr. Ambler wrote, the thrillers have gotten much bigger in scope . . . and moved beyond reality. Usually, the future of the human race is at stake. The heroes make Superman look like a wimp in terms of their prowess and knowledge. There's usually a love interest who exceeds your vision of the ideal woman. Fast-paced violence and killing dominate most pages. There are lots of toys to describe and use in imaginative ways. The villains combine the worst faults of the 45 most undesirable people in world history and have gained enormous wealth and power while being totally crazy. The plot twists and turns like cruise missile every few seconds in unexpected directions. If you want a book like that, please do not read Mr. Ambler's work. You won't like it.

If you want to taste, touch, smell, see and hear evil from close range and move through fear to defeat it, Mr. Ambler's your man.

On to Cause for Alarm. The book begins powerfully with a prologue, Death in Milan. A man is waiting to follow an Englishman in the cold. The Englishman appears and crosses the street. A large limousine accelerates violently into him, running him over. The man next to the driver sees that the Englishman is still alive, and directs the driver to "Go back and make certain." They run over the Englishman again. This time, he dies.

English production engineer, Nicky Marlow has just gotten engaged, and almost as quickly loses his job when the Barton Heath works have to be closed when a key customer is lost. Jobs are scarce during the Depression, yet he turns down a chance to take a four year contract in Bolivia for small pay. Finally, he applies for and obtains a one-year assignment in Milan which will mean being away from his fiancee, who has encouraged him to be sensible. They can get married later.

The job means supplying equipment needed to make munitions, and Germany and Italy are now allies. So Marlow is put in the touchy position of helping make arms that may be used later against his countrymen. He closes his eyes to that problem and begins doing his new job, replacing a predecessor who was unexpectedly killed in an automobile accident. Soon, strange characters begin courting his favors and offering him tempting deals. One of them even encourages him to play along with another of the characters. It seems that Marlow has unexpectedly put himself right in the middle of Britain's enemies as they spy on one another. Everyone needs him to do their bidding, and few care whether he survives or not. The Fascists even grab his passport to make him more vulnerable. Totally unprepared, he begins to pursue a dangerous double-timing game.

One of the reasons why I am so fond of this book (which I have read several times) is that it points out that when we ignore the morality of our business activities there will be a price to be paid. Another interesting moral question is what the right thing to do is when we are faced with the possibility of reducing risk to others by increasing the risk to ourselves. When are we obligated to do so?

The colorful figures of Zaleshoff and General Vagas make the story ever so much spicier. Neither are people with whom Marlow would have associated in England, yet the two are key to his making progress in Milan.

The book's structure is written like three novellas. The first details the situation in which Marlowe finds himself. The second involves his engagement in the espionage. The third relates his attempt to escape. You will feel like a person being sucked by the undertow out to sea as you progress from one novella to the next . . . as increasing fear and heaviness grip you.

After you finish, think about some place in your life where your work causes or could cause harm to others. How can you overcome that current or potential harm?

When the angry trumpet sounds alarm
And dead men's cries do fill the empty air . . . I say, come forth, and fight with me!

These words of Warwick from Shakespeare's Henry VII, Part II seem a very appropriate theme for Eric Ambler's "Cause for Alarm". First published in 1938, when the Second World War had not officially started, Cause for Alarm painted a picture of a world where the dying had already begun, albeit in the streets and alleys of Europe if not yet on the battlefield.

For those not familiar with his work, Ambler was to the modern British spy novel what Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett were to the American detective novel. Ambler transformed the spy novel from a simplistic black and white world of perfect good guys versus nefarious bad guys into a far more realistic world where sometimes the difference between good and evil is not all that great.

Typically, Ambler would take an unassuming, unsuspecting spectator and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe. The result was a series of highly entertaining and satisfying books that many believe set the stage for the likes of le Carre, Deighton, and, most recently, Alan Furst.

"Cause for Alarm" follows Ambler's typical plot line. Nicky Marlow is a recently laid-off English engineer. He is also recently engaged. His search for employment grows increasingly frustrated until he answers and advertisement for what appears to be a somewhat down-at-the heels machine tool company. Despite being told that that the company (the aptly named Spartacus Machine Tool Co.) sells machine tools used in the armaments industry and is profitably engaged in selling its equipment to Italian `military-industrial complex' Marlow accepts a position as the company's Italian sales agent.

No sooner does Marlow arrive in Italy than he is swept up into a web of death and intrigue. He soon finds his predecessor was murdered and finds himself in the cross-hairs of the OVRA (fascist Italy's secret police), a `general' who may be either a Yugoslav or German spy, and Soviet secret agents. It seems as if everyone is telling Marlow, "come forth and fight with me." Marlow, at first at least, has buried his head in the sands and ignore the moral implications of his work. He is just doing his job, or so he says more than once.

As mentioned the basic outline of an Ambler novel, the innocent Brit caught in a web of sinister, cynical European intrigue, may be found in Cause for Alarm. However, the pleasure of reading Ambler is not just for the plot but for his keen eye for detail, his vivid but realistic prose (Ambler writes in a world where black and white is overwhelmed by shades of grey), and his ability to place his `small characters' and their problems in the context of a world about to go mad yet again. You won't find easy answers in an Ambler novel and you won't always find a knight in shining armor riding off into the sunset with `his lady'.

If you like well-written, realistic novels set in pre-war Europe you should read Ambler. Similarly, if you are a fan of Alan Furst (as I am) you should read Ambler. It is always worth going back to the source!

Espionage: Realistic, Vivid and Noir!!
To read or not to read the great spy novels of Eric Ambler? That is the question most people ignore because they are not familiar with Mr. Ambler and his particularly talent.

Mr. Ambler has always had this problem. As Alfred Hitchcock noted in his introduction to Intrigue (an omnibus volume containing Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Cause for Alarm and Background to Danger), "Perhaps this was the volume that brought Mr. Ambler to the attention of the public that make best-sellers. They had been singularly inattentive until its appearance -- I suppose only God knows why." He goes on to say, "They had not even heeded the critics, who had said, from the very first, that Mr. Ambler had given new life and fresh viewpoint to the art of the spy novel -- an art supposedly threadbare and certainly cliché-infested."

So what's new and different about Eric Ambler writing? His heroes are ordinary people with whom almost any reader can identify, which puts you in the middle of a turmoil of emotions. His bad guys are characteristic of those who did the type of dirty deeds described in the book. His angels on the sidelines are equally realistic to the historical context. The backgrounds, histories and plot lines are finely nuanced into the actual evolution of the areas and events described during that time. In a way, these books are like historical fiction, except they describe deceit and betrayal rather than love and affection. From a distance of over 60 years, we read these books today as a way to step back into the darkest days of the past and relive them vividly. You can almost see and feel a dark hand raised to strike you in the back as you read one of his book's later pages. In a way, these stories are like a more realistic version of what Dashiell Hammett wrote as applied to European espionage.

Since Mr. Ambler wrote, the thrillers have gotten much bigger in scope . . . and moved beyond reality. Usually, the future of the human race is at stake. The heroes make Superman look like a wimp in terms of their prowess and knowledge. There's usually a love interest who exceeds your vision of the ideal woman. Fast-paced violence and killing dominate most pages. There are lots of toys to describe and use in imaginative ways. The villains combine the worst faults of the 45 most undesirable people in world history and have gained enormous wealth and power while being totally crazy. The plot twists and turns like cruise missile every few seconds in unexpected directions. If you want a book like that, please do not read Mr. Ambler's work. You won't like it.

If you want to taste, touch, smell, see and hear evil from close range and move through fear to defeat it, Mr. Ambler's your man.

On to Cause for Alarm. The book begins powerfully with a prologue, Death in Milan. A man is waiting to follow an Englishman in the cold. The Englishman appears and crosses the street. A large limousine accelerates violently into him, running him over. The man next to the driver sees that the Englishman is still alive, and directs the driver to "Go back and make certain." They run over the Englishman again. This time, he dies.

English production engineer, Nicky Marlow has just gotten engaged, and almost as quickly loses his job when the Barton Heath works have to be closed when a key customer is lost. Jobs are scarce during the Depression, yet he turns down a chance to take a four year contract in Bolivia for small pay. Finally, he applies for and obtains a one-year assignment in Milan which will mean being away from his fiancee, who has encouraged him to be sensible. They can get married later.

The job means supplying equipment needed to make munitions, and Germany and Italy are now allies. So Marlow is put in the touchy position of helping make arms that may be used later against his countrymen. He closes his eyes to that problem and begins doing his new job, replacing a predecessor who was unexpectedly killed in an automobile accident. Soon, strange characters begin courting his favors and offering him tempting deals. One of them even encourages him to play along with another of the characters. It seems that Marlow has unexpectedly put himself right in the middle of Britain's enemies as they spy on one another. Everyone needs him to do their bidding, and few care whether he survives or not. The Fascists even grab his passport to make him more vulnerable. Totally unprepared, he begins to pursue a dangerous double-timing game.

One of the reasons why I am so fond of this book (which I have read several times) is that it points out that when we ignore the morality of our business activities there will be a price to be paid. Another interesting moral question is what the right thing to do is when we are faced with the possibility of reducing risk to others by increasing the risk to ourselves. When are we obligated to do so?

The colorful figures of Zaleshoff and General Vagas make the story ever so much spicier. Neither are people with whom Marlow would have associated in England, yet the two are key to his making progress in Milan.

The book's structure is written like three novellas. The first details the situation in which Marlowe finds himself. The second involves his engagement in the espionage. The third relates his attempt to escape. You will feel like a person being sucked by the undertow out to sea as you progress from one novella to the next . . . as increasing fear and heaviness grip you.

After you finish, think about some place in your life where your work causes or could cause harm to others. How can you overcome that current or potential harm?