The Light of Day

The Light of Day

Rating

10.0

The Pequod Review:

With the possible exception of A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939), The Light of Day is Eric Ambler’s finest crime novel. The hero of the story is a small-time scam artist (Arthur Simpson) who scans for arriving passengers at the Athens airport and offers his discounted services as a driver so that he can later rob their hotel rooms. Unfortunately, his latest mark (a tourist from America named Harper) catches him in the act and blackmails him into participating in a much larger crime. Once again, Ambler's plot is ingenious, with a superb (and sometimes very funny) first-person narrative — one in which the reader is as bewildered as Arthur as to the true motivations of Harper and his team. The book was made into the 1964 film Topkapi, which later inspired the creation of the Mission: Impossible TV show.