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The Light of Day is Eric Ambler's eleventh novel, published in 1962. It was made into a film with the title Topkapi, released in 1964.

Outline of the plot
The story is told in the first person by unreliable narrator, small-time crook and con artist, Arthur Simpson. He is of uncertain nationality, having had a British father and Egyptian mother. He scrapes a living in Athens where he claims to be a journalist but in fact makes money ripping off tourists.

Simpson uses a few tricks to collect an American tourist, Harper, at Athens airport and persuades him to hire Simpson as his chauffeur and guide. Simpson drops Harper at a seafront restaurant, then goes back to his hotel bedroom to steal some of his travellers' cheques. Unfortunately, Harper catches him red-handed and beats him up a little before making him a proposition. Would he like to earn a little money by driving a brand-new American car (a Lincoln) from Athens to Istanbul? The owner will meet him there. As an added incentive, Harper makes Arthur write a confession to stealing the travellers’ cheques and says he’ll give it to the police if he refuses.

With not much choice, Simpson sets off the next day. Once he’s sure he’s not being tailed, he pulls over and searches the car – surely there must be something hidden in it – but can’t see anything suspicious. But at the Turkish border, officials notice his Egyptian passport is out of date. The police give the car a professional search find the door panels are full of grenades, pistols and ammunition!

Simpson is thrown into a cell and interviewed by a Turkish security officer, Captain Tufan, who makes him a counter-offer: Does he want to go to prison for smuggling guns, or will he agree to spy on his employers? Simpson agrees and is given a small radio to receive instructions and send reports, as well as a phone number to call when he's able, or an instruction to write messages in cigarette packs and drop them whne he knows he's being followed by security agents.

In practice this spying amounts to delivering the car to the Istanbul hotel as arranged and then persuading Harper to keep him on as driver and guide. He now meets the other members of the 'gang':


 * the beautiful Miss Lipp, the car's supposed owner and Harper's girlfriend;
 * an aggressive man named Fischer
 * an older man, apparently the boss, named Miller

Simpson discovers they are renting a big property just outside Istanbul. He drives Harper and Miller to a small quay from which they go out to a boat to meet a man named Giulio – and back again. So Simpson can report to his Turkish contacts the names and comings and goings of the gang – but has no idea what it’s all about. Captain Tufan is convinced the gang are ‘politicals’. There had been a military coup in Turkey and various members of the old regime are in prisons around Istanbul, including one on an island near where the gang went out to a yacht. Simpson thinks they are going to set up a heroin refinery and smuggling operation.

But they’re both wrong. In the final chapters Harper reveals to Arthur that they are jewel thieves. They are going to break into the Seraglio Museum after it has closed and steal jewels. When one of the gang, Fischer, is wounded in a fight with the surly drunken cook, Arthur finds himself press-ganged into helping out with the actual heist.

The break-in and robbery are described coolly and factually. Reinforcing the accuracy of the description are two diagrams, a general plan of the Seraglio in Istanbul, and a more detailed plan of the buildings the robbers climb up and over to reach the jewel room. The grenades turn out to be tear gas and are used in the final stage of the escape to confuse guards where a railway exist the Seraglio compound, and to allow the burglars to escape to a waiting car which drives to the yacht and so away down the coast.

It is only now that Simpson learns the gang will drive from a hideout up the coast back to the airport in the Lincoln. Only he knows that the car is being continuously tailed by Turkish security. The drive to the airport is genuinely nail-biting as Simpson wants the gang to be foiled otherwise he will be in big trouble with Turkish authorities; but his attempts to delay the drive mustn't arouse the suspicions of Harper and the others who might very well 'eliminate' him on the spot. His increasingly frantic efforts to come up with delaying tactics, as seen from his panic-stricken point of view, are both tense and very funny.

In the airport car park, as the others go off to collect their tickets and Harper squats by the side of the car unscrewing the door panel where the loot is hidden, Simpson suddenly accelerates the car, throwing Harper to one side, stalls to make the doors swing shut, then screeches off down the highway, followed as he goes by the Turkish security car. He is in such a panic he drives some way before he pulls over and hands himself over to the authorities.

The final pages make tie up the plot by establishing that Simpson took so long to calm down and stop that he allowed the gang to catch their flight and escape. Reluctantly, Captain Tufan gives him the payment agreed and a passport stamp which will allow him to return to Athens.

On the very last page Simpson self-righteously complains about having been put through such a horrible experience and promises he is going to complain to the British government and demand they give him the British passport which he rightfully deserves.

Analysis
Although it starts in Athens, the majority of the plot is set in Turkey, the scene of Ambler’s pre-War thrillers, The Mask of Dimitrios and Journey into Fear. There is even a brief mention of Colonel Haki, head of Turkish Security, who appears in both those novels.

Simpson is unlike the protagonists of Ambler's earlier novels, who tended to be honest, British professional men thrown into criminal or espionage situations they are completely unused to. Simpson’s small-time criminal career explains the tone of the book which is humorously accepting of crime and scams, which calmly and factually describes the key events but is heavily flavoured with Simpson's anxious self-pity, which is often very funny.

Turkey had undergone its first military coup in May 1960. This explanis the political background to the novel and Captain Tufan's theory that the smuggled weapons must be intended for use in some kind of attempt to free the imprisoned members of the former regime.

Film adaptation
The novel was made into the 1964 film, Topkapi, produced and directed by the emigre American film director Jules Dassin, and starring Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, Gilles Ségal and Akim Tamiroff.

External link


Category:1962 novelsCategory:Eric Ambler novels