Eric Ambler

Eric Ambler began his career in the early 1930s and quickly established a reputation as a thriller of extraordinary depth and originality. People often credit him as the inventor of the modern political thriller, and John Le Carré once described him as "the source on which we all draw."

Ambler began his working life at an engineering firm and then at an advertising agency and meanwhile in his spare time worked on his ambition, plays. He first published in 1936 and turned full-time as his reputation. During the war, people seconded him to the film unit of the Army, where he among other projects authored The Way Ahead with Peter Ustinov.

He moved to Hollywood in 1957 and during eleven years to 1968 scripted some memorable films, A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination.

In a career, spanning more than six decades, Eric Ambler authored 19 books, the crime writers' association awarded him its gold dagger award in 1960. Joan Harrison married him and co-wrote many screenplays of Alfred Hitchcock, who in fact organized their wedding.