Epitaph for a Spy, Eric Ambler (1938)
Epitaph for a Spy, by Eric Ambler
I have been much taken with Eric Ambler since reading Journey into Fear a few weeks back. On the strength of that great read I have bought one after another of the other spy novels and they are all wonderful. They have a naive quality that matches the youthfulness of the genre at the time they were written. This may be because the protagonists are men who have fallen into danger by happenstance – they are not professional spies or, indeed, in any way qualified for what is about to befall them. In this novel, a stateless Hungarian language teacher is embroiled in espionage when his camera is accidentally swapped for that of a mysterious spy staying in the same hotel. Mr Vadassy is initially suspected by the French police after being denounced by the chemist who has developed his prints. Managing to convince them of his innocence depends entirely upon working for them to uncover the culprit among the various international guests. Unfortunately, Vadassy is no Poirot!
