London-born writer, one of the fathers of the spy story.

Ambler’s parents had been entertainers and he himself toured in the late 1920s as a music-hall comedian, also writing plays. From 1924 to 1927 he studied engineering at London University and took up an apprenticeship in engineering at the Edison Swan Electric Company. Later, when the company became part of Associated Electrical Industries, he worked in its advertising department. By 1937 he was the director of a London ad agency, later resigning and moving to Paris where he dedicated himself to writing.

1936 saw the light of the first of his novels, The Dark Frontier, which was to followed before the end of 1940 by another five - Uncommon Danger (1937), Epitaph for a Spy (1938), Cause for Alarm (1938), The Mask of Dimitros (1939) and Journey into Fear (1940) – all considered classics of the genre.