By Max Eastern

Eric Ambler was a genius at building suspense. He didn’t do it brazenly or with gimmicks. He wasn’t in a hurry. Dread comes slowly in his novels. A fact is introduced to the narrative. Something small, seemingly insignificant. Later, another fact is added. A minor action is taken. The situation changes just a bit. The anxiety is turned up only a notch until the next little morsel. As the circumstances accumulate piece by piece, you eventually realize the protagonist has fallen into a trap so complex that he may not escape alive.

A good example is from Ambler’s novel Background to Danger, written in 1937.

Kenton, the protagonist, is a freelance journalist. He is in Nuremberg, Germany, covering a conference of important Nazis. He speaks German well, practically like a native. Ambler wastes no time in inserting little facts and circumstances, minor at first, even innocuous. But they grow.

Kenton is broke. He owes money on a gambling debt that must be repaid immediately. He’s desperate.He knows a man in Vienna who might lend him money. There is no other source for funds. He does not even have enough money to take a direct train to Vienna, so must transfer at Linz.A man joins him in his compartment at an interim stop.Kenton is famished and the man offers to share some food.When the man falls asleep, Kenton notices someone spying on him from the corridor.When the spy leaves, Kenton’s compartment mate admits he was not asleep but trying to avoid the spy. He turns out the light and explains to Kenton that he is a German Jew named Sachs, a factory owner whose business was destroyed by the Nazis, and he is fleeing Germany with ten thousand marks worth of German securities. But the Nazi authorities are onto him and will seize his securities at the German-Austrian border and arrest him for taking such a large amount out of the country. Kenton realizes this is a lie. The man isn’t even German. German securities are non-negotiable abroad.Sachs asks Kenton to carry the securities for him when they cross the border. An Englishman won’t be searched. He offers Kenton three hundred marks, enough to pay his gambling debt with more to spare. Though he knows something is very wrong, Kenton can’t resist this sum. A hundred fifty is provided up front. Sachs hands Kenton an envelope with papers inside. Sachs removes an automatic pistol from his suitcase and slips it into a holster.They reach the border, leave the train, go through customs without incident, re-board the train. But now the plan is changed. Sachs now asks Kenton for a further favor: take the envelope of securities to the Hotel Josef in Linz. He’ll pay him an additional three hundred marks.Ambler reveals to the reader at this point that Sachs is a Soviet agent who turned traitor and stole some important papers. The Soviets have a notorious assassin trailing him. The papers might have to do with a British petroleum company seeking concessions on Romanian oil fields. An agent working for this company is also involved. Kenton knows none of this.When they arrive in Linz, Sachs is followed off the train by the same man who was spying on him from the train’s corridor.Kenton wanders the streets of Linz at night looking for the Hotel Josef. He asks a police officer for directions. The hotel is shabby. Kenton asks the night porter for Sachs’s room. The porter asks Kenton’s name and he gives it. The porter recognizes the name as that of the man Sachs is expecting. He gives Kenton the number of Sachs’s room. Kenton is now determined to hand over the envelope, get his money, and be done with the business.Room 25 door is ajar. It’s dark inside. He calls Sachs name. No answer. Calls it again, louder. He lights a cigarette. Sachs is lying on the floor, stabbed.Kenton checks to make sure he is dead. He gets blood on his fingers. He opens the envelope. They are photographs and documents related to Russian military secrets. There are people waiting outside on the street, perhaps those who killed Sachs. Kenton leaves through a back way, is seen by one of those outside. A flashlight illuminates his face. He runs away.

 

And now all the facts are in place, and Kenton, through a series of tiny circumstances and minor actions on his part, finds himself in deep trouble. He cannot call the police because he would have to admit smuggling the papers into the country. The police might suspect he killed Sachs for his money. Whoever killed Sachs is after the contents of the envelope and they would murder Kenton now to get them. Kenton has provided his name to the night porter, who can also identify him. One of Sachs’s possible killers saw his face. A police officer on the street saw it as well.

The stage is set for the rest of the novel.

Eric Ambler

 

 

Max Eastern is the author of Red Snow in Winter, a thriller set in the final weeks of WWII.