The Light of Day
Mark Campbell

A timely reissue for this, the novel that inspired Jules Dassin's classic 1964 caper movie Topkapi (and now slated for a 2007 remake) The original film stuck pretty closely to the plot of the book, although '60s sensibilities camped up much of the finer detail.

Ambler's prose is, as you'd expect, deceptively simple throughout. Unsentimental and painstakingly precise, he charts the leisurely story of portly taxi driver Arthur Simpson as he accidentally falls in with a bunch of international jewel thieves intent on stealing from a seemingly impregnable Turkish fort-cum-museum. A reluctant secret agent, his inveigling of the criminals' lair is at times unbearably tense. On the down side, the novel - like the film - has a plot that takes a long time coming, and it's really only the last quarter that contains any memorable action. The theft of the jewels themselves takes place entirely unseen, an unfortunate by-product of the single character viewpoint. But it's a solid, strong novel, very good on Turkish history and politics, and eminently readable. Heavily in its favour, too, are several references to that delightful Lewisham landmark of Hilly Fields, my own former stamping ground and a place rarely name-checked in crime fiction.

Posted at 12:00AM Monday 01 Jan 2007