The question is: how did Eric Ambler do it? In a telegram, Graham Greene once addressed Ambler as “the master” while describing himself as a “pupil.” And John Le Carré once designated Ambler as “the source upon which we all draw.” How did Ambler become one of the most influential thriller writers of the last century while avoiding sex and violence, generally considered the necessary staples not only of thrillers, but also of good storytelling?

The answer is: there’s a third element of good storytelling—suspense. As Dickens memorably remarked, “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” And where creating suspense was concerned, Ambler was almost without peer. But before an author can create suspense, he or she must be able to make the reader care about the character, and the character’s fate. What makes Ambler’s books so special is the fact that the reader cares about his heroes even though they aren’t very special people.

In the elusive character of Harry Lime and the menacing atmosphere of post-war Vienna, Greene’s The Third Man owes a good deal to Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios (U.K. title: The Mask of Dimitrios). And in writing the suspenseful final chapters of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Le Carré almost certainly had learned a great deal from the final chapters of Ambler’s Background to Danger (U.K. title: Uncommon Danger), in which the hero, Desmond Kenton, is chased around Austria and Switzerland