CLASSICS OF

DETECTIVE FICTION

Week 1: John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps

Week 3: Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana

Week 4: Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger

Week 5: John Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Week 6: Joseph Finder, Charles McCarry, “End of the

String” and “Neighbors”

OVERVIEW OF EPITAPH

Overview Dark Frontier (1936) parodies British thriller

Epitaph for a Spy (1938) resets country-house mystery

on French Riveria with a spy plot

Viewpoint 1st person point of view = fear, ineptitude and

selfishness

Form Character study -> social types/deceit

Spying as a game -> games within games

Country-house mystery -> discover who did it within a

certain time

CONTEXT: WWII SPIES

Allied spies:

Virginia Hall

Agent Garbo

Soviet spies:

Cambridge 5 Philby

Burgess

Maclean

Cairncross

Blunt

MORALITY/ETHICS OF SPYING

Business is never be purely neutral

Pharmacist who develops film, tells

police

A job is not just a job -> morality and ethics

are involved

Vadassy deciding whether to save

himself at expense of

Schmiler/Heinberger

P. 160 – It was my liberty or someone elses

ERIC AMBLER

June 1909, Born in London

1920s, Engineering student;

advertising copywriter

1930s, Moves to Paris; marries

Louise Crombie

1936, Publishes The Dark Frontier

1938, Publishes Epitaph for a Spy

1939 Publishes, A Coffin for

Dimitrios

ERIC AMBLER

1940, Publishes Journey into Fear

1941-44, Royal Artillery; assistant

director army films; earns Lt.

Colonel rank

1950s, Works in British/U.S.

films; moves to Hollywood

1958, Marries screenwriter/

producer Joan Harrison

ERIC AMBLER

1959, Publishes Passage of Arms

1960s, Works for TV/film 1969,

Moves to Switzerland

1972, Publishes The Levanter

1981, Publishes Care of Time

1985, Returns to England

1998, Dies

CRITICS/READERS

Peers: Praised for realism—psychological,

social, political

Spy thriller from melodrama to realism

Dirtiness, not glamour, of ordinary spying

Villains and heroes banal, shabby

Story material from travelling, talking to refugees

First to capture British subject’s cynicism with the

Empire’s society and politics

CRITICS/READERS

Questions: Still relevant post-Cold War?

Bad guys undercut by humour, ridiculous habits

Popular fiction said more about reality than high

literature

Depicts how business, government and crime work

closely together

‘Depicts death of Victorian ideals; new world of big

business, profit and violence replaces it

PLOT – KEY EVENTS

Assignment: Suspicious photos of military

installments; Vadassy threatened to find out

who the spy is

Quest pursuit/obstacles: Hotel guests could all be the

spy but who?

Inept spycraft by Vadassy – losing the camera

Accused of being a thief – distrusted by other guests

Not realizing it is Roux

Falsely accusing Schimler/Heinberger – putting him

at risk with the Vogels

PLOT – KEY EVENTS

Resolution: Roux leaves hotel with Vadassy

arrest as spy

Roux’s attempt to turn Vadassy into a real spy

Attempted capture, his death

His paymaster uncovered

No great heroism – fear, failure and starting back

at zero

Being forced by state to do things we don’t want

to do

Conclusion : Returning to “normal”

but alienated, lack of trust

GROUP ACTIVITY

Key secondary characters

Vogels – jolly Germans

Herr Heinberger/Schimler- secret Communist spy

Skeltons – young American cousins

M. Duclos – French factory owner

Clarendon-Hartleys

Questions: Who do I pretend to be? Who am I really?

Why am I lying? What will happen to me if I don’t lie?

JEOPARDY - SF ELEMENTS

Hero: Where is Joseph Vadassy from?

Average man-in-middle, unheroic, fearful;

misreads clues/own self (Vadassy)

Villain: What physical oddity does Roux

have?

Overly sensual/brutal behaviour

Shrewd observer, intelligent interrogator

“Realist” (materialistic) world view

SPY FICTION ELEMENTS

Helpers: What relationship do the Skelton’s pretend

to have?

Mean well (“genuine”) – Skeltons, Kӧche

Self-interested – Duclos, Vogels, Clarendon-Hartleys

Victims – Schimler, Vadassy

Chief: What does Beghin do in the heat?

Banal but dangerous

Shrewd, calculating.

Official power vs. the stateless citizen

SPY FICTION ELEMENTS

Technology/spycraft: What 3 nationalities does

Heinberger use?

Speak foreign languages; disguises; blackmail

Specialness of a camera - role of tech allows for

theft of intelligence

Abroad: What major French Riveria city is the

hotel close to?

England/America “safe” but Europe readying for

war

Vacation spot of Riveria is no escape from politics

Settings as key to glamour – being away from home

ISSUES & THEMES

Realism vs. fantasy:

Unheroic hero

Vadassy’s wild imagination

Respectable vs. criminal:

Everyone appears “proper”

BUT impropriety is widespread

-> self-interest as motive

ISSUES & THEMES

Providence vs. Chance vs. Choice:

What is meant to happen –

the will of the universe or human choice?

Camera taken by mistake – does the mix

up favour the spy?

Spy’s jump to freedom fails

Hero’s citizenship problem resolved

by cooperating (spying accusation saves)

ISSUES & THEMES

Average citizen:

What does loyalty/legal behaviour:

depend on - a certain amount of

pleasure?

What is freedom? The safety to move,

talk, meet moderate pleasures?

What is lost freedom? Searched/seized

property (identity cards), restricted

movement, social alienation

ISSUES & THEMES

Spy/criminal:

Self-guarantees freedom, self-defines

pleasure

Freedom of action via violence

Pleasure not “ordinary” but excessive,

desiring more than others

FILM

Ambler successful screenwriter:

Noir characters plus anti-hero

Exotic atmosphere

Frequent devices = re-construct identity

and/or dead coming alive → influences

Greene’s “The Third Man,” Welles’

“Citizen Kane”

FILM CONT.

Hitchcock’s uncertain heroes/spies

– who to trust? -> Notorious – hunting Nazis;

The lady vanishes (spies)

Suspicion who is the hero? Saboteur – man on run,

wrongly accused

Foreign Correspondant – looking for villain – but

under your nose – the girlfriend’s father

Ambler’s wife Joan Harrison, worked as screenwriter

for Hitchcock and then as as producer before marrying

Ambler; Ambler’s books influenced AH

FILM CONT.

“Topkapi” (1964) – based on Ambler’s Light of Day

Hiring Arthur Simpson – shmoh

Thriller-comedy, how the rejected of British society

become criminals or quasi-criminals

Dassin leaves US before 1950 b/c of Hollywood

blacklist, moves to France, directs and known for

noir films