Journey Into Fear – Eric Ambler

It is always good not to get set in one’s ways. I don’t usually read thrillers but a combination of a BBC Radio 4 serialisation of his works, a snippet of which I heard, and a good deal from Penguin Modern Classics encouraged me to pick up this Book. Written in 1940 and imbued with the atmosphere of the phony war stage of the Second World War where major conflict has not broken out, where alliances are still somewhat fluid and both sides are jockeying for position.

Stuck in the middle of all of this is a British engineer, Howard Graham, who has been working on an important munitions project in Istanbul (or Stambul, as it was known at the time) on behalf of the Turkish government. On returning to his hotel on the eve of his long-awaited return home and after an evening out at a seedy night club where he was conscious of being stared at by a man, he is astonished to find an intruder who takes several pot shots at him. Graham is only slightly injured and thinks that his assailant was an opportunity thief whom he had disturbed.

The scales fall off Graham’s eyes when he is advised by Colonel Haki of the Turkish Intelligence that this was no ordinary thief but an assassin. So important is the project on which he has been working that the Nazis are determined to kill him, thus delaying the upgrade of the Turkish military capabilities until the following spring at least. To protect Graham, his travel plans are changed and he is advised to sail to Genoa in an Italian freighter. Despite having been told that his fellow passengers have been vetted, not all of them are all that they may seem. Part of the essence of the book is Graham’s struggle to work out who he can trust and who is out to get him.

And Ambler has assembled a motley collection of characters. Each is skilfully drawn and there is enough ambiguity in each of their characters to keep the reader and, of course, Graham guessing as to their true colours and motivation. There is the seductive night club dancer, Josette, whose charms Graham seems unable to resist and plans to spend some time with if and when he gets to Paris. This romantic dalliance adds some complications to his escape plans. Her seedy husband, Jose, seems to make his living by turning a blind eye and pimping her out.

Then there is the seemingly charming German scholar, Dr Fritz Haller, who delights in boring the assembled company with expositions on archaeology and the rather clingy and annoying Turkish tobacco importer, Mr Kuvleti. There is a French married couple, whose political views are the polar opposite of each other’s but are united enough to sit on the same table as the German as a gesture of enmity. Their discourses allow Ambler, a Communist at the time, to take aim at international capitalism.

There is an air of a locked room mystery, a plot mechanism beloved of crime writers of the Golden Age of detective fiction, about the book or, perhaps, more accurately a who will do it, Ambler masterfully wringing out as much tension as possible from seemingly trivial, social engagements and the exchange of niceties. The tension is ramped up a few notches more when the man, whom Graham had spotted at the night club and whom he had subsequently been told was a notorious political assassin, joins the ship.

The final third of the book changes from a tense psychological thriller to an action-packed page turner as the boat docks and Graham tries to escape from the clutches of his assassins. I will not spoil the story save to say that the ending has a somewhat melodramatic twist.

I enjoyed the book immensely and will certainly read some more of Ambler.