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What Members Thought
Not really spy fiction, not very thrilling or intriguing. All in all, I hope this is one of (only?) the underwhelming efforts by Ambler because I want to read more. The first 50 pages or so led me to think this was going to be very interesting. Then nothing happened...seriously, nothing was added to the story again until the final 40 pages or so, and the final 40 pages didn't serve any purpose other than to wrap up and get out of town. If you're an Ambler completest, read until George leaves for
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Eric Ambler’s 1953 novel The Schirmer Inheritance isn’t quite a crime novel, or at any rate certainly not a conventional one. It’s perhaps best described as a mystery thriller with a dash of international intrigue. It’s somewhat in the style of Graham Greene’s cloak-and-dagger novels. Ambler and Greene took the spy/adventure story as written by people like John Buchan and seasoned it with lots of cynicism, and a certain amount of black humour. The Schirmer Inheritance is typical of Ambler’s work
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Eric Ambler (like Alan Furst) is a master practitioner of that kind of fiction that tells one more about a time in history than can almost any non-fiction historical work. With The Schirmer Inheritance the reader takes a deep dip into modern European wartime life. Great characters, shifts in the plot and pathos without soppiness.
Nov 13, 2013
Mark
added it
Jan 09, 2016
Ralph Buddle
marked it as to-read
Apr 19, 2025
Philby
marked it as to-read
