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First published over 30 years ago and just republished by No Exit as part of their 18 year celebration, this is Ambler at his best. Better known as an author and screenwriter, he was no stranger to engineering, business and politics, and all three are brought into play brilliantly. Michael Howell is running his family business in Syria in the 1970s, just after the Six Days War. How to deal with the nationalisation agenda of the Syrian Ba’ath Party? Temporisers among business people believe that watching and waiting is the only way. The accuracy of these portrayals suggests that Ambler actually knew and understood such people. Descriptive and atmospheric passages are dispensed with in favour of strong character portrayals and convincing dialogue. His description of Dr Hawa, for example, the Syrian official he deals with in his business, is both detailed and sharp: ‘A threat to no one with the power to destroy him, he had accordingly survived.’ But, despite little description, his feel for the politics and people maintains the tension and intrigue. An audacious terrorist operation is being hatched by the Palestine Action Force, which, although fictional, seems based on Marxist-Leninist groups like the still extant and in-the-news Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command). Although time has moved on, Yasser Arafat is not with us and new issues have emerged, the whole book seems surprisingly contemporary and fresh. Even a detailed engineering solution to a problem with fitting fuses to rocket mortars, which could have been very tedious, is dealt with in an interesting way. First class, gripping and realistic.