Writeology

Read: Epitaph for a Spy, Eric Ambler

My second Ambler book in the past couple months (the first was Journey Into Fear. Epitaph bears some resemblance to Journey, in that it too is about an innocent bystander who becomes embroiled in an espionage plot. In this case, the narrator is Josef Vadassy, a Yugoslavian-born Hungarian citizen who is arrested by the French on espionage charges, due to incriminating photographs in his possession. What follows is a paranoid excursion as Vadassy finds himself trapped into having to help the authorities smoke out the real spy. Almost all the action takes place at a small hotel, the Réserve, and it feels a bit like a play. According to IMDB, two separate TV series and a movie were made out of the book, with Vadassy played by both Peter Cushing and James Mason. Sadly, Netflix has none of them.