Epitaph for a Spy cover art

Epitaph for a Spy

Penguin Modern Classics

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Epitaph for a Spy

By: Eric Ambler
Narrated by: Mark Noble
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee and language teacher living in France, is enjoying his first break for years in a small hotel on the Riviera. But when he takes his holiday photographs to be developed at a local chemists, he suddenly finds himself mistaken for a Gestapo agent and a charge of espionage is levelled at him. To prove himself innocent to the French police, he must discover which one of his fellow guests at his pension is the real spy. As he desperately tries to uncover the true culprit's identity, Vadassy must risk his job, his safety and everything he holds dear.

©1938 Eric Ambler (P)2020 Penguin Audio Espionage Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense

Critic reviews

If you want to experience the feel of the Continent in the 1930s, you will find few better guides (Robert Harris)
Unquestionably our best thriller writer (Graham Greene)
The source on which we all draw (John le Carré)
All stars
Most relevant
The twists and turns of the story and the way the characters are developed and reveal themselves

Highly engaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unfortunately the book doesn’t stand the test time. Additionally, I found it quite boring in places.

Fran

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not one of Ambler’s best yarns, but quite readable. The story shows how vulnerable the lives of stateless people and anti-Nazi Germans was in the late 1930s, as Europe went blindly towards war.

The narration let it down : too modern when reading the passages of the Hungarian narrator, and completely over-the-top (and wrong) French and German accents, weird Swiss-German accents and poor 1930s American accents. Not unlistenable (at least for me), but frequently irritating.

Not a bad period piece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I adore Eric Ambler but (and I am sorry to say it because it sounds really mean) the narration ruined it for me. The narrator went over the top giving every character ridiculous accents. It took me out of the story and had me focussed (and irritated) by the various "impressions" being done.

I couldn't finish this....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.