Customer Reviews

Background to Danger

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The strength and effectiveness of a nation's armed forces depends on the supply of petroleum and other raw materials. Pan Eurasian Petroleum wants to get concessions from the Rumanian government, but its plans were exposed by a leftist newspaper and were suspended. PEP will hire an expensive agent to fix this problem. Kenton, an English free-lance journalist, is on a train to Vienna in search of money. A stranger on this train offers him money to carry an envelope across the border from Germany. The author's knowledge of engineering is shown by his comments in Chapter II: "vertical borers, milling machines and turret lathes", "all-geared head, straight bed S.S. and S.C lathe". When Kenton goes to the hotel to deliver the envelope, he finds the stranger has been stabbed dead. The envelope contained photographs and military secrets.

Kenton was followed, and captured by Colonel Robinson's men. Beaten and threatened unless he surrenders the secret papers. Kenton knew that Big Business pulled the strings of Government statesmen. "Follow the money" is always the clue to politics. But a near miracle occurs when Andreas appears and frees Kenton. They escape through the woods. During a talk, Andreas explains why Big Business needs somebody like Colonel Robinson: to do their dirty work, and to be expendable if caught (Chapter X). Zaleshoff explains why War Plans are secret, even if prepared for a contingency. Kenton tells them where the secret papers are hidden; but there are problems. Kenton is wanted for the murder, and, masked men stole the envelope with the secret papers. Kenton leaves for Prague. He gets on a tour bus and is befriended by a British salesman, who gives his opinion on western Europeans (Chapter XII).

The book describes Kenton's escape across the border into Czechoslovakia. After he arrives by train in Prague, he is escorted away by two plains-clothes policemen. They are Zaleshoff's men. Exciting adventures and events follow. The incriminating secret papers are retrieved, then destroyed. Kenton returns to his post in Berlin by train, but no longer plays poker-dice. Ambler knew how to create a story that holds your interest until the end. You can compare this story to those of Buchan or Oppenheim.

Are well foretold that danger lurks within." Henry VI, Part III.

When down-on-his-luck British journalist Kenton boarded an Austria-bound train at Nuremberg he likely had no idea what danger lurked within. Strapped for cash after losing virtually all his money in a dice game, Kenton agrees to smuggle an envelope across the Austrian border for an old man claiming to be a refugee from Hitler's Germany. This was the point at which Kenton stumbled at the threshold of danger in Eric Ambler's spy thriller "Background to Danger".

Long before Fleming's James Bond, le Carre's George Smiley and Len Deighton's Harry Palmer there were Eric Ambler's accidental spies. In the late 1930's the loosely defined adventure/spy genre was not much advanced from the earlier works of Erskine Childers (Riddle of the Sands) and John Buchan (Thirty Nine Steps). Typically, Ambler would take an unassuming, unsuspecting spectator and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe, a world of shadows and shades of grey. The result was a series of highly entertaining and satisfying books that many believe set the stage for the likes of Fleming (who read Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" while writing "From Russia With Love") le Carre, Deighton, and, most recently, Alan Furst. "Background to Danger" is an excellent example of Ambler at work.

Kenton's absorption into the world of intrigue begins shortly after taking possession of the documents on the train. It quickly becomes clear that the man is no refugee and the envelope contains documents that foretell danger for anyone unlucky enough to have them. The documents are sought by ruthless interested parties that include Soviet agents (a brother and sister who make appearances in a number of Ambler's books) and industrial spies hired by an English munitions company that belies possession of the documents will enable it to enhance its sales of arms to Eastern Europe. As these parties close in on him Kenton is forced to think on his feet and make life and death decisions about who he can and cannot trust. Kenton knows his life is in danger and he must flea Austria for the relative safety of Czechoslovakia. The story follows Kenton's escape attempt until a climactic scene in which the few remaining loose ends are tied up.

As with all his best work Ambler is a great scene-setter. You get a real feel for the many geographic settings he uses as the book progresses. Ambler is also good at character development. His writing is terse and to the point yet the characters nature is revealed slowly and in a non-hackneyed manner. There are no saints or starkly painted devils in Ambler's books but ultimately Ambler's protagonists (and the reader) are provided with enough information to make a choice between good and evil or, sometimes, a hard choice between the lesser of two evils.

Background to Danger is an excellent book and makes for a worthy introduction to Ambler's work for anyone not familiar with his work. For fans of Ambler, I'd say this is among the upper end of his stories. They are all good, but I'd say that Background to Danger is close to the top of the heap.

I'm am surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did! It's not the typical type of story I read. The mysteries I'm used to reading are far more "fluffy" than this. However, the characters in "Background to Danger" were so intriguing and - oddly enough, warm - that I found myself sucked into the characters as much as the mystery.

I've only given this four stars because, really, of my own personal tastes and lack of knowledge on the countries and foreign relationships the story deals with. I'm sure the book is worthy of 5 stars for anyone who knows more about this era, and is more used to this kind of mystery.

Being the squimish person that I am, I was very pleased that the book isn't very graphic. Yes, people get killed, but, happily, Ambler doesn't go into much detail.

I also appreciated the good guy/bad guy, somewhat blurred lines of right and wrong... the story presents interesting circumstances that place our protagonists in situations where what would appear to be "wrong" is, perhaps, actually "right." This said, the story focuses on the mystery and the "messages" aren't overly apparent and really just a subtext for those wishing to seek them.

This is a very interesting read and I'd be more than happy to read it again and partake of another Ambler adventure.

Everywhere Kenton goes, he seems to have the misfortune of finding a dead body with a knife protruding from its back. The police believe Kenton is responsible for at least one of the deaths, so he is on the run. His only chance to prove his innocence lies in recovering the photographs that a stranger gave him while he was on a train to Austria -- photographs he no longer possesses. Unfortunately for Kenton, at least two adversaries are also determined to find the photographs. As Kenton makes his way from Nuremberg to Linz to Prague, a journey that becomes more desperate by the minute, he tries to puzzle out the relationships between the various parties who are after the photographs. Along the way, he attempts to anticipate their next moves, the better to survive the journey.

This formula -- an innocent man caught in a web of intrigue must use his wits to save himself while thwarting the evildoers -- is the sort of thing that Alfred Hitchcock loved to film (Background to Danger was, in fact, filmed in 1943, but by Raoul Walsh). Background to Danger has all the hallmarks of a black-and-white Hitchcock film: a brooding atmosphere, a strong sense of place, quirky characters, sharp dialog, and suspense that begins to build from the opening scene. Yet the plot wasn't formulaic when Eric Ambler wrote Background to Danger; Ambler is one of the formula's originators, and writers who subsequently followed the formula have rarely done it better than Ambler.

The plot (as we learn in the prologue, it all has to do with oil) is complex without becoming convoluted. Action scenes alternate with chapters that engage the intellect, producing a story that drives forward at a brisk pace without ever becoming mindless. Ambler didn't feel the need to bog down the text with unnecessary verbiage as have so many of his successors; the story is tight. This isn't Eric Ambler's best novel (my favorite so far is A Coffin for Dimitrios) but it is more entertaining than most of the thrillers written in more recent decades. If I could, I would give Background to Danger 4 1/2 stars.

Background to Danger was first published in 1937 making it one of legendary spymaster Eric Ambler's earliest efforts. In some ways it's a bit of a throwback to even earlier espionage novels such as those authored by John Buchan. Contained within its pages are a number of fantastic exploits that include breakneck chase scenes and last minute escapes from death and danger.

Desmond Kenton, the protagonist of this third person narrative, is a British freelance journalist. While on a train traveling from Germany to Austria he is given an envelope by a fellow passenger to hold for safe keeping. Unbeknownst to Kenton, the envelope contains politically sensitive Soviet military information which places him in mortal danger.

To fully appreciate the international significance of Background to Danger's storyline, one would have to have a working knowledge of internal Rumanian politics circa 1937. Though Ambler supplies a fair amount of exposition to fill in any gaps the reader might have in this particular area, the motivation behind the actions of many characters remains obscure.

Background to Danger rates 3 stars. A worthwhile read for Ambler fans. But he's done much, much better.

As the second in what would become an impressive progeny of spy novels, Background to Danger (also published as Uncommon Danger (Penguin Modern Classics)) is clearly not Ambler's best. In fact, it falls far short of its siblings. Characters come onto the scene too quickly, their many aliases in tow. Their travels, which pivot about a poorly developed political narrative, lead them haphazardly gallivanting about Europe. Each scene is little more than a blur. The narrative itself, besides being poorly developed, is too cynical of capitalism and too sympathetic to communism to resonate with the modern reader.

Nevertheless, you can see some promise here, if not some glimpses of Ambler's later and more recognized novel A Coffin for Dimitrios. The villain no doubt is an archetype for Ambler's equally villainous Dimitrios. The story he shadows, though at times too fast and difficult to access, provides the usual escape and some unexpected action. For the most part, the book is enjoyable, but the long-time fan of Ambler will likely find it less appealing than usual.

One of three of the best novels by Ambler, the others "Coffin for Dmitrios" and "Cause for Alarm." Written in 1937, Ambler weaves a suspensful story about a down on his luck journalist who stumbles into a web of intrigue. I personally enjoy this type of novel; in addition to a good yarn, the background is contemporaneous. It's like stepping into a time machine.

If you like spy and crime mixed in with war, you will like Eric Ambler paperbacks.