Dirty Story (Ambler)

First edition
(publ. The Bodley Head)

Dirty Story is a 1967 novel by Eric Ambler. The book continues the story of Ambler's anti-hero, the half-caste petty criminal Arthur Abdel Simpson who took part in a daring Istanbul robbery in Ambler's earlier The Light of Day. In this book, Simpson is forced by circumstance to take up a career as a mercenary for a cynical mining company in Central Africa. Simpson is a misfit unsuited for the role of mercenary, yet he manages to outwit his far tougher professional colleagues, and to keep the reader's sympathy as an engaging rogue.