Re: RARA-AVIS: ambler and dibdin

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 27 Apr 2002


Mike,

Re your questions below:

> i made my weekly pilgrimage to the local bookstore
> last
> night. i saw a couple authors who looked
> interesting
> but i don't know anything about them. they are eric
> ambler and michael dibdin. anybody know anything
> about
> or read these authors? one of the dibdin titles,
> _rat-
> king_, appealed to me. sounds hardboiled/noir.

Eric Ambler was a titan of the espioange novel. In fact, he could almost be called the Father of the Modern Spy Novel. Typically, his heroes were not professional agents, but ordinary types who got mixed up in spy plots through a series of unexpected circumstances. I wouldn't call them hard-boiled, but they're usually damned good. He won one Edgar for a non-espionage caper novel, THE LIGHT OF DAY, which became the movie TOPKAPI, and two Golden Daggers for STATE OF SIEGE and THE LEVANTER.

Dibidin writes cop novels set in Italy. His series character is a Roman detective named Arelio Zen. RATKING won a Golden Dagger for Best Novel. I found it a bit dry for my taste and haven't been moved to seek out other Zen books, but you may like him.

JIM DOHERTY

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