Skytip

by Eric Ambler

Peter Ackland is ordered to rest by his Doctor. He travels to Cornwall and is greeted by Henry Braddock at the door of a cottage below the 'skytip'. Braddock has a revolver in his pocket. Ackland also comes across Nathan Murrison and his valet, who divide their time between exploring the 'skytip' and propping up the bar of the Green Dragon; a charming young lady who, on behalf of a Member of Parliament, tries her hand at burglary; other less charming characters who try their hand at blackmail; and a stage that is all set for murder.

Genres: Novels, Fiction

190 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Suspense novels of noted English writer Eric Ambler include Passage of Arms (1959).

Eric Ambler began his career in the early 1930s and quickly established a reputation as a thriller of extraordinary depth and originality. People often credit him as the inventor of the modern political thriller, and John Le Carré once described him as "the source on which we all draw."

Ambler began his working life at an engineering firm and then at an advertising agency and meanwhile in his spare time worked on his ambition, plays. He first published in 1936 and turned full-time as his reputation. During the war, people seconded him to the film unit of the Army, where he among other projects authored The Way Ahead with Peter Ustinov.

He moved to Hollywood in 1957 and during eleven years to 1968 scripted some memorable films, A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination.

In a career, spanning more than six decades, Eric Ambler authored 19 books, the crime writers' association awarded him its gold dagger award in 1960. Joan Harrison married him and co-wrote many screenplays of Alfred Hitchcock, who in fact organized their wedding.

Reviews

[Alonzo Church · Rating 5 out of 5]

A partnership between Eric Ambler and an obscure author, this is a spy novel/political thriller that our current lot of bestseller writers should copy.

The plot is low budget paranoia, a trait in a lot of Ambler and Graham Greene. Our hero is an architect sent to the countryside for a rest by his worried doctor. He suffers a collection of indignities while being sucked into the orbit of an author of an unsuccessful tabloid journalist, a vaguely fascist fringe party, and the requisite pretty girl who may be the femme fatale or the heroine. All of this takes place in a strange mining-scarred landscape in Cornwall that is made for film noir.

If you like Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock, seek this one out.

[Nicola Talbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who don’t know, a skytip (or sky tip) is a slag heap formed as a by-product of the Cornish china clay industry. The clay is excavated and the unwanted rubble is dumped. This forms a landscape of white craters and conical mounds, with rail tracks leading from the bottom of the crater to the top of the mound so that the rubble can be transported by truck and dumped at the top. There’s a winder house between the edge of the crater and the bottom of the mound that contains the apparatus that moves the trucks. This is the setting of Ambler’s Skytip.

Peter Ackland is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and his doctor orders rest and recommends a farm in a peaceful Cornish location amongst the skytips. Things don’t get off to a good start as a confusion about dates results in Peter arriving at the station a day early, so the expected lift to the farm isn’t provided. This is an era where many properties still don’t have phones and the farm is one of them, so he has to set off on foot. Luckily he manages to get a bus as far as a nearby village. The directions he’s given by a local are of the ‘you can’t miss it’ variety, and Ackland ends up knocking on the wrong door. Unusually for such a location, the door is obviously bolted and on a chain, but it’s finally opened by Henry Braddock who appears to be holding a heavy object in his pocket. Ackland is somewhat alarmed but Braddock gives him directions and the acquaintance between them is formed, which Ackland comes to regret.

Ackland is clearly suffering from symptoms of depression: small noises irritate him, he finds himself trying avoid company, and he becomes deeply suspicious, but he dismisses clues that the genre-savvy reader pick up on as just depression-induced paranoia. When Braddock goes missing, Ackland eventually investigates, not because he’s an amateur detective, but because he simply wants peace of mind to help cure his paranoia. Unfortunately for Ackland, it turns out that there are good grounds for suspecting foul play.

The story is set in the early post-WWII period when rationing is still in force and the economy is in a mess. A Member of Parliament is the leader of a political group who are full of promises and try to use the Arthurian legend to promote a feeling of patriotism. The politically-naïve Ackland at first only sees the superficial hopeful side of the group, but he unwittingly gets caught up in political plots and blackmail.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Ambler.
He's the best.
Inspired the rest.