Books

[Spy thriller] FIRST EDITION. A Haycraft-Queen cornerstone novel. Octavo (19 x 14cm), pp.320. Publisher's red cloth with gilt titles to spine. Internally very clean with no ownership marks, bookplates or inscriptions. Covers are fresh but for a little sunning to spine, a few small marks and the usual tarnish to the gilt. A decent example. An important writer of thrillers, Ambler is a Haycraft-Queen listed novelist and one of a select few writers who have won a CWA award on three seperate occasions. Ian Fleming later acknowledged Ambler's work as a influential factor in the development of Commander James Bond. This title was a direct source book for the novel From Russia With Love (Gilbert, Section L, p.621). Howard Haycraft; Murder For Pleasure. Cooper and Pike; Detective Fiction, see also Haining; Crime Fiction p.201. Gilbert; Ian Fleming The Bibliography.

Considered one of Ambler's best works, this novel features the mystery writer Charles Latimer, who stumbles upon the life story of criminal Dimitrios Makropoulos.