Here Lies: An Autobiography (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Winner of the Edgar Award, Eric Ambler’s autobiography Here Lies is an intriguing look inside the mind of one of our greatest thriller writers. Here the famously recalcitrant Ambler peels back the layers of experience that affected his life with the same skill he uses to unfold the plots of his novels. His South London childhood; his brief engineering career, which he gave up to work in theater; his time as an advertising copywriter; the publication of his revolutionary spy novels in the 1930s and ’40s, including such early classics as A Coffin for Dimitrios and Journey into Fear; his service in the film division of the British War Office during World War II, which allowed him to write his first screenplays; and his postwar renown as the leading writer in the genre on both sides of the Atlantic. In these pages this masterful spy novelist has composed a compelling and insightful examination of his life.