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What Members Thought
Bestselling spy novelist Charles Cumming has chosen to discuss
A Coffin for Dimitrios
by Eric Ambler on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Espionage, saying that:
"...Eric Ambler is the grandfather of the serious spy novel. Ambler was the same generation as Graham Greene, and he was, like a lot of educated people at that time, a kind of proto-Marxist, a socialist. He believed that he could use the thriller not only to entertain but also as a political tool, to say something abo ...more
"...Eric Ambler is the grandfather of the serious spy novel. Ambler was the same generation as Graham Greene, and he was, like a lot of educated people at that time, a kind of proto-Marxist, a socialist. He believed that he could use the thriller not only to entertain but also as a political tool, to say something abo ...more
While this is considered a classic of the spy genre and I have enjoyed the author's work before (especially Epitaph for a Spy) I had a hard time finishing this book. The writing style, which was pretty much flashbacks and info dumping, just did not engage me. I did think the overall plot was interesting and found the details of criminal activity in Europe between the wars fascinating though so the book was not a total loss.
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A classic novel of espionage by a master of the genre. Perhaps Ambler's best. A thinking man's literary spy novel. This novel influenced Greene's The Third Man.
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An excellent pre-WW2 spy thriller infusing elements of crime, espionage and noir fiction.
A first class read that hasnt dated in the slightest.
A first class read that hasnt dated in the slightest.
Dec 15, 2008
Pranav Mehta
marked it as to-read
Aug 23, 2009
Peter
marked it as to-read
Jul 22, 2011
KOMET
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-espionage-thriller,
eric-ambler
Aug 04, 2011
BMK
marked it as to-read
Oct 22, 2011
Dave
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Mar 25, 2012
Karan
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Oct 01, 2012
Joshua Lax
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Aug 31, 2014
Steve Anderson
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Sep 14, 2017
Cold War Conversations Podcast
marked it as to-read
Feb 19, 2020
Brian
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Aug 24, 2020
Diana180
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