Uncommon Danger (Penguin Modern Classics)
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'A crackerjack spy story, jammed with action, intrigue, thrills and super-villainy' Saturday Review 'If you want to experience the feel of the Continent in the 1930s, you will find few better guides' - Robert Harris
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Kenton's career as a journalist depends on his facility with languages, his knowledge of European politics and his quick judgement. Where his judgement sometimes fails him, however, is in his personal life. When he travels to Nuremberg to investigate a story about a top-level meeting of Nazi officials, he inadvertently finds himself on a train bound for Austria after a bad night of gambling. Stranded with no money, Kenton jumps at the chance to earn a fee helping a refugee smuggle securities across the border. Yet he soon discovers that the documents he holds have far more than cash value - and that they could cost him his life ...
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Are well foretold that danger lurks within." Henry VI, Part III.
When down-on-his-luck British journalist Kenton boarded an Austria-bound train at Nuremberg he likely had no idea what danger lurked within. Strapped for cash after losing virtually all his money in a dice game, Kenton agrees to smuggle an envelope across the Austrian border for an old man claiming to be a refugee from Hitler's Germany. This was the point at which Kenton stumbled at the threshold of danger in Eric Ambler's spy thriller "Uncommon Danger".
Long before Fleming's James Bond, le Carre's George Smiley and Len Deighton's Harry Palmer there were Eric Ambler's accidental spies. In the late 1930's the loosely defined adventure/spy genre was not much advanced from the earlier works of Erskine Childers (Riddle of the Sands) and John Buchan (Thirty Nine Steps). Typically, Ambler would take an unassuming, unsuspecting spectator and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe, a world of shadows and shades of grey. The result was a series of highly entertaining and satisfying books that many believe set the stage for the likes of Fleming (who read Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" while writing "From Russia With Love") le Carre, Deighton, and, most recently, Alan Furst. "Background to Danger" is an excellent example of Ambler at work.
Kenton's absorption into the world of intrigue begins shortly after taking possession of the documents on the train. It quickly becomes clear that the man is no refugee and the envelope contains documents that foretell danger for anyone unlucky enough to have them. The documents are sought by ruthless interested parties that include Soviet agents (a brother and sister who make appearances in a number of Ambler's books) and industrial spies hired by an English munitions company that belies possession of the documents will enable it to enhance its sales of arms to Eastern Europe. As these parties close in on him Kenton is forced to think on his feet and make life and death decisions about who he can and cannot trust. Kenton knows his life is in danger and he must flea Austria for the relative safety of Czechoslovakia. The story follows Kenton's escape attempt until a climactic scene in which the few remaining loose ends are tied up.
As with all his best work Ambler is a great scene-setter. You get a real feel for the many geographic settings he uses as the book progresses. Ambler is also good at character development. His writing is terse and to the point yet the characters nature is revealed slowly and in a non-hackneyed manner. There are no saints or starkly painted devils in Ambler's books but ultimately Ambler's protagonists (and the reader) are provided with enough information to make a choice between good and evil or, sometimes, a hard choice between the lesser of two evils.
Uncommon Danger is an excellent book and makes for a worthy introduction to Ambler's work for anyone not familiar with his work. For fans of Ambler, I'd say this is among the upper end of his stories. They are all good, but I'd say that Background to Danger is close to the top of the heap.
When down-on-his-luck British journalist Kenton boarded an Austria-bound train at Nuremberg he likely had no idea what danger lurked within. Strapped for cash after losing virtually all his money in a dice game, Kenton agrees to smuggle an envelope across the Austrian border for an old man claiming to be a refugee from Hitler's Germany. This was the point at which Kenton stumbled at the threshold of danger in Eric Ambler's spy thriller "Uncommon Danger".
Long before Fleming's James Bond, le Carre's George Smiley and Len Deighton's Harry Palmer there were Eric Ambler's accidental spies. In the late 1930's the loosely defined adventure/spy genre was not much advanced from the earlier works of Erskine Childers (Riddle of the Sands) and John Buchan (Thirty Nine Steps). Typically, Ambler would take an unassuming, unsuspecting spectator and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe, a world of shadows and shades of grey. The result was a series of highly entertaining and satisfying books that many believe set the stage for the likes of Fleming (who read Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" while writing "From Russia With Love") le Carre, Deighton, and, most recently, Alan Furst. "Background to Danger" is an excellent example of Ambler at work.
Kenton's absorption into the world of intrigue begins shortly after taking possession of the documents on the train. It quickly becomes clear that the man is no refugee and the envelope contains documents that foretell danger for anyone unlucky enough to have them. The documents are sought by ruthless interested parties that include Soviet agents (a brother and sister who make appearances in a number of Ambler's books) and industrial spies hired by an English munitions company that belies possession of the documents will enable it to enhance its sales of arms to Eastern Europe. As these parties close in on him Kenton is forced to think on his feet and make life and death decisions about who he can and cannot trust. Kenton knows his life is in danger and he must flea Austria for the relative safety of Czechoslovakia. The story follows Kenton's escape attempt until a climactic scene in which the few remaining loose ends are tied up.
As with all his best work Ambler is a great scene-setter. You get a real feel for the many geographic settings he uses as the book progresses. Ambler is also good at character development. His writing is terse and to the point yet the characters nature is revealed slowly and in a non-hackneyed manner. There are no saints or starkly painted devils in Ambler's books but ultimately Ambler's protagonists (and the reader) are provided with enough information to make a choice between good and evil or, sometimes, a hard choice between the lesser of two evils.
Uncommon Danger is an excellent book and makes for a worthy introduction to Ambler's work for anyone not familiar with his work. For fans of Ambler, I'd say this is among the upper end of his stories. They are all good, but I'd say that Background to Danger is close to the top of the heap.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Uncommon danger' was first published in 1937 (in the U.S.A. this appeared as Background to Danger; it was made into a film, Background to Danger, in 1943, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring George Raft).
Synopsis: An English journalist has lost all his money in a poker game and gets on the Nuremberg-Linz (Austria) train to borrow some from an old acquaintance. A shady character offers him a substantial sum to carry some papers across the German/Austrian border, and he accepts. When he delivers the papers in Linz, the shady character has been murdered, and our English journalist is accused of the murder. He has to find the real murderer, as well as what the papers represent, and gets into deep political waters.
This book is amazingly different from Ambler's first book, 'Dark Frontier', from 1936, which didn't quite know if it wanted to be a pastiche or a thriller. I would say this one is the first of modern 'spy' thrillers, the forerunner of Deighton, Le Carre et al. There is a really good atmosphere of increasing oppression, the 'hero' is all too human, confused and scared, but stubborn and opinionated too. A nice touch is that his helpers against the forces of evil are.. communists. But then the book was published two years before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact...
The book has a very nice line in irony and cynicism, but can be emotional too (the outburst of the English commercial traveller comes as quite a shock), and deals, in a very Ambler-fashion, with the reactions of a normal person, an amateur, with high politics and big business, and the tentacles of 'policy' carried out by criminals.
A surprisingly modern story, really; and still very readable, and still very enjoyable.
Synopsis: An English journalist has lost all his money in a poker game and gets on the Nuremberg-Linz (Austria) train to borrow some from an old acquaintance. A shady character offers him a substantial sum to carry some papers across the German/Austrian border, and he accepts. When he delivers the papers in Linz, the shady character has been murdered, and our English journalist is accused of the murder. He has to find the real murderer, as well as what the papers represent, and gets into deep political waters.
This book is amazingly different from Ambler's first book, 'Dark Frontier', from 1936, which didn't quite know if it wanted to be a pastiche or a thriller. I would say this one is the first of modern 'spy' thrillers, the forerunner of Deighton, Le Carre et al. There is a really good atmosphere of increasing oppression, the 'hero' is all too human, confused and scared, but stubborn and opinionated too. A nice touch is that his helpers against the forces of evil are.. communists. But then the book was published two years before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact...
The book has a very nice line in irony and cynicism, but can be emotional too (the outburst of the English commercial traveller comes as quite a shock), and deals, in a very Ambler-fashion, with the reactions of a normal person, an amateur, with high politics and big business, and the tentacles of 'policy' carried out by criminals.
A surprisingly modern story, really; and still very readable, and still very enjoyable.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my first Ambler and it left me keen to try more. The plot moves quickly along and picks up momentum as it reaches the climatic car chase scene. My only criticism would be that to a modern reader Ambler can seem a little naiive and cliched. Of course this is because this is where the genre began and without Ambler and Chandler there would be no Le Carre etc etc.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Exciting pre war thriller
I've read all of Eric Ambler's recently reissued spy thrillers and am reviewing this one in the context of all five. Read more
Published on 26 April 2010 by D. J. H. Thorn
Superb
This was my first experience of Eric Ambler, and I will certainly be reading the other four titles of his in Penguin's Modern Classics range. Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2010 by J. Evans
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