Title: Dirty Story
Author: Eric Ambler
Ambler, Eric (1967). Dirty Story: A Further Account of The Life And Adventures of Arthur Abdel Simpson. London, Sydney [etc.]: Bodley Head
LCCN: 68071167
PZ3.A48 Di3
Subjects
- Intelligence service–Great Britain–Fiction. \
- Form/Genre
Date Posted: November 25, 2016
KIRKUS REVIEW[1]
This “A Further Account of the Life and Adventures of Arthur Abdel Simpson, first seen in Topkapi[2], shows Eric ambling along in his usual high style. The left of law Simpson is once again in trouble. Dubbed “a celebrated nuisance” by the British Consulate General, he’s lost his passport and is about to be kicked out of Athens. In his frenetic attempt to beg, borrow, steal or forge a new one he first joins the “Blue Film” industry with an Italian company bent on bringing the more pagan rites of ancient Greece to sinema, but ousted because of a misunderstanding he finds himself literally a soldier of fortune. Through complications too numerous to mentions he ends up as a hired gun for a “rare earth” mining company bent on launching a small border war in a newly created African state. Naturally our hero is impelled along first by fate, then by sheer terror. He does have the presence of mind to try and effect a last minute double-cross as “insurance” but even that backfires. There is a coup though, when Simpson finds not one but sixteen newly minted passports and… Poor Simp, his life was “nothing but a longs dirty story” but it’s certainly fun to follow.
[1] Kirkus, downloaded November 25, 2016
[2] Topkapi (Filmways. Released by United Artists Corp., 1964), based on the novel The Light of Day, by Eric Ambler
Intelligence Fiction 