Dirty Story (Ambler)

First edition
(publ. The Bodley Head)

Dirty Story is a 1967 novel by Eric Ambler. The book continues the life of Ambler's anti-hero, petty criminal Arthur Abdel Simpson a man whose English father and Egyptian mother have given him uncertain citizenship. Simpson took part in a daring Istanbul robbery in Ambler's earlier The Light of Day. In Dirty Story Simpson is forced because of threatened destitution to become a mercenary for a cynical Central African mining company. He is a misfit with little military experience and so is unsuited for the role of mercenary. Yet he outwits his ruthless professional colleagues and keeps the reader's sympathy as an amusing self-aware engaging rogue. Good descriptions of life on the edge in Athens and Djibouti.