A very good story, perhaps a bit dated, but that may be the attraction. Well worth 5 stars. ( )

3.5 stars rounded up. I don't know what it is but despite the fact that this thriller had many elements I like, as a whole it didn't quite work for me. Maybe it was the personality of the main character... Maybe it was just my mood right now. Even though it was missing some ingredient to make it a great book for me, it was still a good example of the "innocent person caught up in intrigue" type of thriller & the setting was wonderful. ( )

Estambul, 1940. Graham, un discreto ingeniero y experto en armas acaba de mantener conversaciones de alto nivel con el gobierno turco. Al regresar a su hotel, descubre que alguien quiere matarlo. Le han disparado al entrar en la habitación y decide escapar de la ciudad en un vapor. Un viaje lleno de peligros en el que conocerá a una hechizante bailarina francesa, un desastrado hombre de negocios, un misterioso médico alemán, un hombre diminuto y brutal que viste un arrugado traje… Graham debe sospechar de todos, esconderse en ese barco del que no puede escapar y sobrevivir a una travesía de pesadilla.

Set during the "Phoney War," Journey Into Fear captures completely those opening moments of World War II before the Fall of France and the entry of Italy into the war on the side of Hitler. Nobody really had an idea where the war would lead, and certainly nobody could imagine the outcome and devastation that would be the result five years later. Yet Ambler somehow seems to have a premonition of it all. And in this straight forward linear thriller, his characters all seem immersed in the moment. Because the moment is all you have. At book's end, the threat is literally on the horizon.

For this tale, Ambler creates a sinister pair of Nazi agents, an English moralist under the siege of temptations towards both lust and fear, and set of quirky Spaniards, surprising French, and woe begotten Italians, all encompassed by clever Turkish policemen.

The latter point is especially important. For Ambler specialized in bring Turkey and Greece into the picture of his crime settings. He does so again, here. And he also goes one better, incorporating a Romanian member of the Iron Guard into the action. I believe this is actually the second or third time Ambler used a member of the Iron Guard. That is fairly notable. Rarely do they figure into the fiction of pre-war or war fiction. In fact, rarely do they make it into fiction at all. That is one of the joys of Ambler, seeing him stake out territory that others miss or don't have the background to understand.

Oh, by the way, the story is the usual excellent Ambler style thriller. A page turner that will not loosen its grip on your interest. ( )

As the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle are the archetypal detective stories and Conan Doyle virtually seen as the father of the genre, likewise the novels of Eric Ambler are seen as the best earliest examples of the spy novel.
While some of Ambler's novels see a lot of action, «Journey into Fear» is more about the subtle build-up of tension of a man who knows himself in danger of getting murdered.
What makes the novels special is that they were written at a time when war was about to break out, and Ambler's assessment of the rise to power of the Nazis is very accurate and astonishing (not in this novel). Particularly to contemporary readers, in the late 1930s and early 40s these novels must had a great sense of actuality. To readers of our time the novels present an exotic forray into espionage of the first half of the Twentieth Century; they are still very exciting to read. Five of Ambler's spy novels have been reissued in the collection of Penguin Modern Classics. ( )