Epitaph for a Spy

Rating:
Summary: Classic old-fashioned Fun
Review: Classic post-WWI spy tale wherein a Hungarian teacher/translator with no national status is vacationing in the south of France and is accused of being a spy. A mix-up with his camera has him in jail and set for extradition unless he helps the police capture the real spy, who must be one of the guests at his hotel. With this as the set-up, this is very much a mystery of the type set on an English country manor with a houseful of guests. Here, the guests are of varying nationalities, and may not be what they seem. The hero manages to bungle a number of situations, which gets annoying but certainly raises the tension. Some of the plot is rather forced, but it's still good old-fashioned fun.

Rating:
Summary: Not Your Normal Vacation
Review: I consider this book not as one of the best of Amblers's works but still very exciting and good book to read. The plot does not seem very convincing. And unless the French police is that stupid I can not imagine why they think he can be guilty or even helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of the best of Amblers
Review: I consider this book not as one of the best of Amblers's works but still very exciting and good book to read. The plot does not seem very convincing. And unless the French police is that stupid I can not imagine why they think he can be guilty or even helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Not Your Normal Vacation
Review: Imagine scrimping and saving for that special vacation. Someplace you have always wanted to go. You arrive and things are splenid, that is until suddenly you are arrested for being a spy. Thats the case here, and to make matters worse, your told you can't leave the country unless you help in finding the real spy and if you refuse then it's off to jail.

Josef Vadassy is the main character in this book. A language teacher who gets arrested in France and is arrested for a crime he hasn't committed.

This was a good book with many twists and turns. You find yourself laughing at some of the situations that Vadassy finds himself in and feeling sorry for him at the same time.

Though this is an older book,it sort of reminds you of an old movie or radio program.

If you are looking for something light hearted then I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Early Ambler, but very good.
Review: Many people who have heard of the legendary Eric Ambler think of him as a mystery writer, whereas he is actually a writer of novels of intrique and suspense. The exception is Epitaph for a Spy which, while amply full of intrique and suspense, is also a mystery story -- the only true whodunit that Ambler wrote. However it is a mystery story of great integrity with none of the sleight-of-hand used by lesser authors to turn the least plausible person in the book into the guilty party in the last chapter. If you think of Ambler as a mystery writer, read Epitaph for a Spy and you won't be disappointed. But you will probably want to read Ambler's other intriguing novels as well, even if they are not mysteries per se.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping and well-written
Review: Reading Epitaph for a Spy made me realize how much better popular/mass-oriented fiction was in the old days. Unlike most of the bestselling writers today, who merely put out glorified screenplays, Ambler (like Ian Fleming) uses style as well as plot to entertain. Epitaph for a Spy is an excellent book, with the southern French setting and characters very vividly described, though it's more of a mystery/detective story than spy fiction in the usual sense.

Rating:
Summary: The Amateur Counter-Spy and His Bungles!
Review: To read or not to read the great spy novels of Eric Ambler? That is the question most people ignore because they are not familiar with Mr. Ambler and his particularly talent.

Mr. Ambler has always had this problem. As Alfred Hitchcock noted in his introduction to Intrigue (an omnibus volume containing Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Cause for Alarm and Background to Danger), "Perhaps this was the volume that brought Mr. Ambler to the attention of the public that make best-sellers. They had been singularly inattentive until its appearance -- I suppose only God knows why." He goes on to say, "They had not even heeded the critics, who had said, from the very first, that Mr. Ambler had given new life and fresh viewpoint to the art of the spy novel -- an art supposedly threadbare and certainly cliché-infested."

So what's new and different about Eric Ambler writing? His heroes are ordinary people with whom almost any reader can identify, which puts you in the middle of a turmoil of emotions. His bad guys are characteristic of those who did the type of dirty deeds described in the book. His angels on the sidelines are equally realistic to the historical context. The backgrounds, histories and plot lines are finely nuanced into the actual evolution of the areas and events described during that time. In a way, these books are like historical fiction, except they describe deceit and betrayal rather than love and affection. From a distance of over 60 years, we read these books today as a way to step back into the darkest days of the past and relive them vividly. You can almost see and feel a dark hand raised to strike you in the back as you read one of his book's later pages. In a way, these stories are like a more realistic version of what Dashiell Hammett wrote as applied to European espionage.

Since Mr. Ambler wrote, the thrillers have gotten much bigger in scope . . . and moved beyond reality. Usually, the future of the human race is at stake. The heroes make Superman look like a wimp in terms of their prowess and knowledge. There's usually a love interest who exceeds your vision of the ideal woman. Fast-paced violence and killing dominate most pages. There are lots of toys to describe and use in imaginative ways. The villains combine the worst faults of the 45 most undesirable people in world history and have gained enormous wealth and power while being totally crazy. The plot twists and turns like cruise missile every few seconds in unexpected directions. If you want a book like that, please do not read Mr. Ambler's work. You won't like it.

If you want to taste, touch, smell, see and hear evil from close range and move through fear to defeat it, Mr. Ambler's your man.

On to Epitaph for a Spy. During the pre-World War II era, it was common for ordinary citizens to be pressed into espionage activities, whether knowingly or not. These were often wealthy yachtsmen, newspaper reporters and industrialists with connections. Mr. Ambler deliberately makes a joke of that practice by making his "spy" be one of the biggest bunglers you can imagine . . . a predecessor to Inspector Clouseau. In fact, this book is one of the few humorous spy stories. Yet the humor is like that of Shakespeare's clowns . . . to relief the tension from the horrible events happening elsewhere in the story.

To me, Epitaph for a Spy is one of Ambler's greatest accomplishments. He convincingly and appealingly combines elements that I have never seen put together in another espionage story.

It's just before the start of World War II in the south of France, not far from Toulon where the French Mediterranean fleet was docked. Josef Vadassy, a stateless "Hungarian" who works as a language teacher in Paris, is taking for him a luxurious vacation at the shore for two weeks. His only valuable possession is a wonderful camera that he is using to make artistic photographs of lizards. Usually he does his own developing, but being on vacation he wants to see how the effects of his experiments work out so he takes the film to a local chemist. When he returns to pick up the film, he's unexpectedly arrested!

The police commissaire shows him the films and asks, "Was it the lighting, Vadassy, or was it the massing of shadows that so interested you in the new fortifications outside the naval harbor of Toulon?" Shocked by the question, Vadassy looks at the prints. "Lizards, lizards, lizards. Then came a photo from what looked like one end of a concrete gallery . . . I was looking at the long, sleek barrels of siege guns."

The police soon become convinced that he did not take the photographs, but it is a question of national security to find out who did. Surely, it is someone at Vadassy's hotel. He's given the choice of being deported or helping unmask the real spy.

From there, the fun begins. Vadassy is supposed to interrogate the guests, create all kinds of excitement . . . and wander down to the public telephone where all can hear to report his progress every morning. Naturally, he's no match for the spy. The complications will keep you enjoyably mystified as you learn all about the secrets that the guests are hiding.

More seriously, you realize that the police see Vadassy as an expendable pawn in a mortal battle. Ambler wants you to see the dangers of dehumanizing enemies, friends and foes. You'll come away convinced that such "strategic" thinking makes us less secure in ways that we don't appreciate.

After you finish the book, think about parallels to today's world and how we may sometimes compromise our human compassion and spiritual dimensions by first serving "strategic" national interests. I found the issue timely.