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State of Siege

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Eric Ambler became famous with the suspense novels he wrote in the late 1930's. He saw the evil of facism spreading throughout Europe and used contemporary events as the backdrops for his stories. His stories incorporate the struggle between the liberal values of the Western Democracies and the warped values of the facist police state. With perfect hind sight, we know that Eric Ambler got it right. He was no appeaser and had no problems in knowing and saying that Nazi Germany and Facist Italy were deeply evil states.

After the Second World War, Ambler's first books picked up many of the same themes he developed in his pre-war stories. The locale shifted from Western Europe to the newly Communist Eastern Europe and Balkans. Ambler knew evil when he saw facism and he recognized it again in the newly totalitarian Communist police states. Ambler was no fellow traveler and once again history showed that he was right in his assesment.

State of Seige was written in 1956 and takes place in a newly independent Southeast Asian nation. An Islamic Fundamentalist military coup is taking place, and an English engineer gets front row seats to the proceedings.

This book was published two years after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and during the middle of Britain's sucessful anti-communist struggle in Malaysia. With his usual nose for being in the right place at the right time, Ambler gives us his take on the newly indpendent nations of Southeast Asia. Without giving too much away, Ambler once again got it right in his assesment of history.

As usual, Ambler's writing is elegant. State of Seige is a straight forward story and lacks the usual Ambler twists and turns. It is both a great suspense story and an opportunity to see how an English writer viewed the end of colonialism. It is an interesting take on the post colonial world worthy of Graham Greene or Jean Larteguy.

Ambler's novel takes place on an island republic near to Indonesia. There is going to be a coup d'etat, and Steve Fraser stumbles on some of the planning the night before. He overhears a conversation between two army men, one of whom he knows. When confronted by the "Major" he first feigns ignorance and then unconcern. Steve is leaving for home in three days, and local politics is none of his concern.

He is offered the use of his friends apartment for the three days he will be in the capital city before his flight. Steve makes a deal with a local acquaintance (of euroasian background) to keep him 'company' until his plane is ready to leave. It's all very quaint, in an ex-patriot english style. Everything on the up and up and no one getting hurt in the end.

There's just one little problem, his friend's apartment is in the building that holds the local radio station and is to become the central headquarters for the coup d'etat. There are lots of threats, bombings and shooting going on after the first day. But, with true anglo-saxon stiff-upperlip, Fraser keeps his head and is able to survive when all around him are being killed. He even has time to buy the girl a present before he leaves the island for home.

A delightful read from a time of great naivite, when a European was able to outwit the natives without getting his shirt bloody.

"State of Siege" takes your mind on vacation in space and time - a vacation where an exotic spot for a Westerner suddenly turns into a hellhole. It follows Ambler's familiar formula of an average Englishman traveling abroad who is caught up in intrigue. In this case, Steve Fraser is winding up a three-year electrical engineering contract working on dam construction in an Indonesia-like island in the mid-1950s. As he departs, a coup d'etat breaks out, with an incompetent and corrupt post-colonial government suddenly challenged by a nationalist and Muslim military faction. They haven't got any solutions to their nation's problems but expertly capitalize on popular resentments against foreigners. Fraser and a girlfriend, taken prisoner, finds themselves thrust unwillingly into an ambiguous center of action as they try to read the mind and motives of their captors, with their lives on the line. The plot remains surprisingly fresh despite the book's being written a half-century ago. Ambler's writing is elegant and spare as always, with small truths simply put, with larger truths hinted at.

Eric Ambler is one of our greatest writers of action-based suspense thrillers. What distinguishes his stories are two elements that are often missing from today's thrillers. First, the protagonist is way over his head with little apparent chance to survive. Second, during the story's development, many moral choices need to be made.

In State of Siege, we meet Steve Fraser, an expatriate English engineer, as he finishes a highly paid three-year assignment to build a dam in an island nation near Indonesia. The local political situation is a little dicey after the revolutionary party finds itself having a hard time actually running the country. The dam project has been affected by the arrival of surplus military officer liaison. One was dependable, a Major Suparto, who plays a key role in the rest of the story.

Fraser then finishes up, and flies over rebel lines to the capital to wait for his flight back to England in three days. He borrows an apartment from a friend while he's away, arranges for a beautiful woman to accompany him for the three days, and settles down for a little rest and relaxation.

That seeming tranquility is shattered when the rebels take advantage of military maneuvers away from the capital to seize control of the radio station and key areas in the center city, just where Fraser is staying. He finds himself surrounded by rebels, who aren't sure whether to kill or ignore him. Then, his mere proximity to the rebel leaders draws him into the vortex of the conflict. Over 24 hours, he finds himself forced to make many difficult choices if he is to stay alive for another day . . . and protect the life of Rosalie Linden, who would not survive without him.

The story is a delight in character development. With all of the stress involved in a coup d'etat, we see people for who they really are . . . as the life and death challenges peel away their exterior masks. Fraser, Suparto, Rosalie, and Sanusi (the rebel leader) are especially well done and interesting.

The plot is a neat one, showing realistically the shadowy calculations required to seize and retain control of a newly independent country.

After you finish the book, think about what you would have done if you were Fraser in the same situation. Could you have made better choices than he did? If not, why not?

Donald Mitchell
Co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

In the part of the world once known as the East Indies, The Republic of Sunda, a former Dutch colonial outpost, struggles with its new found independence. Unfortunately, the ruling government is both corrupt and ineffectual, setting the stage for civil war.

Steve Fraser, a British engineer completely disinterested in the nuances of internal Sundanese politics, finds himself right in the middle of the military conflict. In typical Eric Ambler fashion, he becomes the novel's unlikely protagonist.

State of Siege is a remarkable work of fiction. In it, Ambler touches on a number of geopolitical issues without clubbing the reader over the head with dogma. Moreover, neither the government nor the rebels are presented as being morally superior to the other. Both are shown to be seriously flawed entities. In other words, rather than romanticizing the conflict, Ambler presents it with realism.

The narrative is taut, fast paced and compelling. Quite an achievement especially when one considers that well over 50% of the story unfolds entirely within the confines of a single building. Originally published in 1956, State of Siege contains a number of important messages remarkably relevant to today's international scene. Highly recommended.

A "state of siege" (the equivalent of martial law) overrides control of normal government. This novel is set in a former colony of the Netherlands East Indies, and is from the viewpoint of a English engineer. Revolution was followed by loans to develop a dam for hydroelectricity. Comments about a new government in Chapter 1 are very wise, and can find parallel events in other countries. The new Government is threatened by some from the former united front; this is complicated by the hatred against the former colonial masters. The engineering company must hire "liaison managers" who were nominated by the government for these new jobs. Some people had friends among both the Government and the insurgents. In Chapter 4 Steve Frazer finds himself in the middle of a rebellion. His hotel is attacked by bombers from the air force, and flooding prevents the radio station from operating. Frazer uses his engineering background to fix the generator and makes himself useful. This is all part of a clever plot to eliminate the rebels by provoking an attack that leaves the attackers vulnerable to a counter-attack. An old, old trick that works again.

This is another story of an average person who is caught in the political conflict of his times. He survives in part because of his good manners, and the story requires it.

when the days of the siege are fulfilled. Ezekiel.

In many respects, Eric Ambler was to the modern British suspense novel what Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett were to the American detective novel. Ambler transformed the suspense novel from a simplistic black and white world of perfect good guys versus nefarious bad guys into a far more realistic world where sometimes the difference between good and evil is not all that great. In a series of books written before World War II Ambler would typically take an unassuming, unsuspecting civilian and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-war Europe. In those books the `hero' would find himself facing danger at the hands of the nazis or fascists.

Once the war ended Ambler's plots reflected a change in the world's political situation. The typical Ambler protagonist now found themselves at odd with other totalitarian forces such as the Soviet bloc (Judgment at Deltchev). In addition, Ambler broadened his geographic horizons and set some of his books in post-war Asia. In these instances the plot usually found itself centered on the intrigue that settled around the newly emerging nations of Asia as the old Europe ended its lingering colonial presence. "State of Siege" is set in an emerging democracy seething with unrest. Although written in 1956 Ambler pits the might of a secular but increasingly corrupt regime against faith-based insurgents who believe that the creation of an Islamic state would purge the country of corruption and moral decay. As such this book seems more than a bit prophetic.

The typical Ambler protagonist in State of Siege is one Steven Fraser. He is an Englishmen just finishing up a three-year stint as an engineer in a rural area of the new nation of Sunda. Fraser has just finished building a series of rural dams that will bring electrification to the countryside. The mythical Sunda is an island nation close to Indonesia. It has an indigenous population that is mostly Muslim and was formerly a Dutch colony. As the story opens Fraser is getting ready to return to Britain. Before leaving his camp he travels to the capital where he plans to obtain an exit visa before continuing his journey home. He soon finds himself smack dab in the middle of a revolt. Fraser, along with his girl friend (and the story of that relationship runs parallel to the main plot) find themselves prisoners at the headquarters of the rebel insurgents.

The remainder of the plot plays out almost like an old fashioned parlor mystery. All the main actors are in one location as the story unfolds. By limiting the scope of the action Ambler allows the reader to hone in on the character of Fraser, his lady friend and the rebels. Ambler does an excellent job, as always with character development. The story is as much an exploration of the inner lives and motivations of the `actors' as a pot boiler mystery. One of the nice things about Ambler's work was his refusal to draw black and white caricatures. His portrayal of Fraser and the plotters is free of cliché. These are human beings with all sorts of motives, good and bad, for their actions.

As the plot unfolds there are some good plot twists that were not obvious to me while at the same time were not far fetched. The climax was satisfactory in large part because Ambler does not sacrifice a sense of reality for totally happy endings.

As I continue to read Ambler's body of work I grow increasingly impressed by his ability to maintain my interest. His books have interesting plots and his characters are real, not wooden. State of Siege is no exception. Anyone interested in Ambler or Alan Furst or who would like to know what inspired the likes of John le Carre and Ian Fleming would be well advised to pick up State of Siege. Highly recommended.
L. Fleisig

Eric Ambler may not have invented the novel of suspense and intrigue but he certainly perfected it. Ambler's novels are analogous to Hitchcock's movies in that they present a sustained atmosphere of suspense, tension, and even fear with little explicit violence. Like Hitchcock, Ambler was quite simply the best there was in his genre and no one currently on the scene can seriously compete with either of these two masters.

State of Siege is not one of Ambler's best book, but it is quite good nevertheless. If you're looking for a good suspense novel and you don't require that it be drenched in gore, give this one a try. I think you'll come back to Ambler again and again.

Eric Ambler began writing in the late 1930s, and his career as a spy novelist spanned five decades. He is the forerunner to many of those in the genre today, and his influences trickled down through Graham Greene, Geoffrey Household, and John Le Carre. It's been years since I've read one of his books, and I decided to pick up "State of Siege" just for fun.

The first twenty pages use a lot of expository narrative to establish the political and cultural background that spark an attempted coup in Muslim Sundra. Once that foundation is laid, Ambler leads us through this quick-paced, intelligent of a British engineer and a local woman caught in the middle of the revolution. Steve Fraser, the engineer, is borrowing a friend's unoccupied apartment for a few days when the coup takes place. The leaders of the coup plan to use the same location as their HQ, not realizing that Steve and his girlfriend have shacked up there. This puts all involved in a tense situation. Steve is called upon for his engineering skills, and he suspects his life is at stake. Even worse, his girlfriend Rosalie is looked upon unfavorably by the Islamic militia, and her safety hangs in the balance of Steve's decisions.

Ambler does a fine job of showing political and personal intrigue through dialogue. His storytelling style is straightforward, not much time for interior monologue or moralizing. Steve and Rosalie serve as able witnesses to the takeover attempt in Sundra, but don't specifically play a larger role in affairs, as would be the norm in a modern novel. In that way, "State of Siege" is refreshing but also a bit forgettable. Nevertheless, for those unfamiliar with Ambler, it's a short and suspenseful introduction to this former master.