This was my first Eric Ambler, but it certainly won't be my last. His name was certainly familiar to me as a writer of thrillers (he died in 1998), but somehow our paths hadn't crossed. No matter -- the wonderful British Library Crime Classics series has now brought out three of his novels, of which this is one, and hopefully there will be more to follow.
The Light of Day is sheer delight from beginning to end. The story is an exciting one -- a rather useless petty criminal gets caught up with a far more ambitious and sophisticated gang of crooks, and forced to participate in a scheme that he doesn't actually know the purpose of until he's halfway through -- but the real joy of this novel is the character of said criminal, Arthur Simpson, who narrates the story.
Arthur, though he constantly assures us that he is 'British to the core', is actually a more or less stateless person. His soldier father was indeed British, his mother Egyptian, and he's never managed to get a British passport. He does has an Egyptian one, but it's just expired and there's some doubt whether he'll be able to get it renewed. He's clearly persona non grata just about everywhere, though he scrapes a living in Athens as a tour guide and lives with an obviously disaffected nightclub dancer. He's clearly had a sad life, overall, frequently rejected and abused for his mixed-race status and unable to succeed at anything he's attempted in the way of a career. So when he spots a supposedly rich American at the airport, he thinks he's onto a good thing.
Harper turns out not to be American, but he does have a posh car and offers Simpson good money to drive it to Turkey, something Simpson rather unwillingly has to agree to when he is caught in the act of stealing some of Harper's travellers' cheques. It turns out the police are suspicious of Harper, and Simpson is soon playing a double game, ostensibly working for Harper but actually spying on him too. Or maybe that should be a treble game, as he naturally hopes he can outwit the lot of them and get away with something for himself. This is going to be far from easy, since he has discovered a cache of small weapons in the car and has to report in various secret ways to the police as well as participate in some incredibly challenging activities which are nearly the death of him.
Arthur is a truly brilliant creation. I read before I started the novel that the character was played by Peter Ustinov in the film of the book, Topkapi -- I've never seen it but Ustinov stayed in my mind throughout as this nervous, shambling, insecure man, with his terrible digestion and his terror of heights. He's constantly trying to think of ways to outwit the highly sophisticated criminals he's working for, but also self-honest enough to be open about his own obvious flaws and failings.
So I really loved this novel and am already reading my second Ambler. Annabel reviewed this one in the new Shiny --you can read that review here.