Cause for Alarm

Book cover of Cause for Alarm

Book description

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He’s engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiancé points out the Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and he figures he’ll be able to endure…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Cause for Alarm as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Julian D. Parrott

Author

I am intrigued by espionage plots that involve amateur spies and Ambler, inspired by the earlier gentleman spy genre, excelled at placing ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Ambler does this superbly in Cause with his main protagonist Nicholas Marlow, a down-on-his luck engineer, finds himself pulled into a deadly spy plot in pre-war fascist Italy. Ambler’s plotting is taut and engaging—more so given when it was written and the subject matter. Along with his rather naïve, romantic Marlow there are Fascist secret police, Nazi agents, and Soviet spies—who are actually the forces of good—(remember the time and the European situation!)…

From Julian's list on world-weary agents of espionage.