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A review by muggsyspaniel
The Light of Day by Eric Ambler
4.0
I'd forgotten quite how much I enjoy this book, a blackly comic heist thriller with a tubby, petty crook anti-hero.
Arthur Abdel Simpson, whose nationality is still in question when the book ends with everyone trying to disown him, is a great narrator. A self-avowed petty criminal with a strange, well hidden, constantly offended dignity and a habit of feeling sorry for himself when things go wrong, which is constantly. Every tight corner Simpson finds himself in is one he has put himself in, every moment of danger and stress is of his own making and the fact that he rarely extricates himself through wit or bravery just means you find him more endearing. He's the little man kicking against the pricks, getting in spitefull little jabs against the figures of authority only to find everything comes back around to bite him on his ample arse in the end.
I think I shall hunt down Dirty Story, another Simpson story, as soon as I can.
Arthur Abdel Simpson, whose nationality is still in question when the book ends with everyone trying to disown him, is a great narrator. A self-avowed petty criminal with a strange, well hidden, constantly offended dignity and a habit of feeling sorry for himself when things go wrong, which is constantly. Every tight corner Simpson finds himself in is one he has put himself in, every moment of danger and stress is of his own making and the fact that he rarely extricates himself through wit or bravery just means you find him more endearing. He's the little man kicking against the pricks, getting in spitefull little jabs against the figures of authority only to find everything comes back around to bite him on his ample arse in the end.
I think I shall hunt down Dirty Story, another Simpson story, as soon as I can.