'Not Le Carre, not Deighton, not Ludlum have surpassed the intelligence, authenticity or engrossing storytelling that established The Mask of Dimitrios as the best of its kind' The Times English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps across Europe to gather material for a new book. But, as he gradually discovers more about his subject's shadowy history, fascination tips over into obsession. And, in entering Dimitrios' criminal underworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on the line. 'A gripping thriller ... still fresh as new' Guardian

English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps across Europe to gather material for a new book. But, as he gradually discovers more about his subject's shadowy history, fascination tips over into obsession. And, in entering Dimitrios' criminal underworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on the line. 'A gripping thriller ... still fresh as new' Guardian

All in all Steve Fraser had enjoyed his three-year stint in the former Dutch Southeast Asian colony of Sunda, and he'd been well compensated. But now he was looking forward to a last weekend in the capital before heading home. But Sunda was newly independent, and not entirely stable. An opposition faction with fundamentalist Islamic leanings was set on overthrowing the provisonal government. And instead of enjoying a sybaritic weekend with the Eurasian beauty Rosalie, Fraser finds himself trapped with her by a fanatical group who've taken over the country's radio station and made their headquarters in his friend Jebb's apartment. As the government launches a counterattack, the couple's survival depends on their ability to dodge bullets and the shifting loyalties of the coup's liuetenants.

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.

Kenton's career as a journalist depends on his facility with languages, his knowledge of European politics and his quick judgement. Where his judgement sometimes fails him, however, is in his personal life. When he travels to Nuremberg to investigate a story about a top-level meeting of Nazi officials, he inadvertently finds himself on a train bound for Austria after a bad night of gambling. Stranded with no money, Kenton jumps at the chance to earn a fee helping a refugee smuggle securities across the border. Yet he soon discovers that the documents he holds have far more than cash value - and that they could cost him his life ...

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily Telegraph 1940. An unassuming English engineer has travelled to Turkey on business. And somebody wants him dead. It all began when Graham was taken to a nightclub in Istanbul and noticed a man in a crumpled suit, watching him. Then he narrowly missed being killed by gunfire on returning to his hotel room. Now, terrified, he has been helped to escape in secret on a passenger steamer home. But although Graham may try to run, he cannot hide from his pursuers forever, and soon he is caught up in a nightmare beyond his control.

'A thriller of the highest quality - ironic, witty, literate, ingenious, understated and unflaggingly suspenseful' The New York Times Book Review The last time anyone saw Lucia Bernardi, she was driving at top speed away from a Swiss villa - leaving the body of her murdered Iraqi lover behind. Now she has vanished, along with a potentially explosive set of papers, and disgraced journalist Piet Maas has been sent to follow her trail to the South of France. But finding her is just the start of his problems. Soon, amid a cast of con men, secret agents and revolutionaries, he must decide whether to land the scoop of his lifetime - or follow Lucia into ever more dangerous waters.

'He took the spy thriller out of the gentility of the drawing room and into the back streets of Istanbul, where it all really happened' Frederick Forsyth Small-time hustler Arthur Abdel Simpson ekes out a living in Athens by robbing gullible tourists. But when an attempted theft backfires, he finds himself out-smarted and blackmailed into driving a highly suspicious car across the border to Istanbul. Then the Turkish secret police get involved, and Simpson becomes embroiled in something far deeper, and more dangerous, than he could imagine. Featuring a heart-stopping jewel heist, this compulsive, morally complex thriller became the basis for the classic film Topkapi.

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He's engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiance points out the Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and he figures he'll be able to endure Milan for a year, long enough to save some money. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth of his predecessor's death and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes it's not so simple to just do the job he's paid to do in fascist Italy on the eve of a world war.

'The man who lit the way for us all' Len Deighton An Indian clerk, Girija Krishnan, sees the opportunity of his lifetime when he stumbles on an abandoned cache of arms hidden in the Malayan jungle. If he can sell the weapons, he will be able to achieve his lifelong dream of owning a bus company - although the penalty for gun-running is death. Soon his decision becomes the catalyst for a chain of events involving an entrepreneurial Chinese family, a corrupt Colonel and, finally, a naive couple of American tourists who find themselves horribly out of their depth.

Returning to his hotel room after a late-night flirtation with a cabaret dancer at an Istanbul b(TM) ite, Graham is surprised by an intruder with a gun. What follows is a nightmare of intrigue for the English armaments engineer as he makes his way home aboard an Italian freighter. Among the passengers are a couple of Nazi assassins intent on preventing his returning to England with plans for a Turkish defense system, the seductive cabaret dancer and her manager husband, and a number of surprising allies. Thrilling, intense, and masterfully plotted, Journey Into Fear is a classic suspense tale from one of the founders of the genre.

World War Two drama starring Gregory Peck as a Canadian pilot who is struggling to overcome the recent death of his wife in the Blitz. Squadron Leader Bill Forrester (Peck) finds himself marooned in the Burmese jungle with his badly injured navigator (Lyndon Brook) and severely traumatised passenger (Maurice Denham) after being shot down by a Japanese fighter. With the help of beautiful Burmese native Anna (Win Min Than), the trio battle to get out of the remote and hostile jungle alive.

A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel with a penchant for British crime novels leads mystery writer Charles Latimer into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers throughout the Balkans in the years between the world wars. Hoping that the career of the notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue, will inspire a plot for his next novel, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a shadowy web of assassination, espionage, drugs, and treachery.

Six classic movies starring Margaret Lockwood. 'The Wicked Lady' (1945) is set during the reign of King Charles II. Lockwood stars as Lady Skelton, an aristocrat who attempts to relieve the tedium of her day-to-day life by secretly acting as a highway robber. Lady Skelton soon finds herself caught up in a tangled web of romance, danger, and jealousy. In 'Love Story' (1944), Lissa (Lockwood) discovers she only has a short time to live, so travels to Cornwall for a final fling. While there, she falls in love with young mineral prospector, Kit (Stewart Granger). However, the course of true love does not run smoothly. In 'Bank Holiday' (1938), a group of people set off on an August bank holiday, including a raucous Cockney family, a would-be beauty queen, and two young lovers - whose relationship starts to come apart when one has to deal with a bereavement at the hospital where she works. In 'Give Us the Moon' (1944), a young man, Sascha (Vic Oliver), joins a group called 'The Elephants' whose principle is to abide by a complete disregard for work. However chaos ensues when the group decides to help run the hotel owned by Sascha's father. In 'Highly Dangerous' (1950), when British Intelligence discovers that an Iron Curtain country is developing insects as weapons, they dispatch entomologist Frances Gray (Lockwood) to get into the country and collect specimens. However her cover is almost immediately blown on her arrival and her contact is murdered. Finally, in 'The Lady Vanishes' (1938), when the elderly Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) goes missing on a train bound for England, her friend Iris Henderson (Lockwood) sets out to find her. However, Iris' attempts are immediately frustrated by her fellow passengers, who question whether Miss Froy ever even existed. Only music scholar Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) is prepared to believe Iris, and together they set about getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award
Syria, 1970. Michael Howell has kept his family's Middle Eastern business enterprises going through a decade of takeovers, war, and revolution, thanks in part to his office manager, Teresa, who is also his mistress. One late night at the office, they discover men working overtime--producing unauthorized bombs for the Palestine Action Force. Worse, this guerrilla terrorist group is not deterred by their discovery--rather, they will enlist Howell and Teresa's unwilling help in carrying out their plan.

"The Dark Frontier "launched Eric Ambler's five-decade career as one of the most influential thriller writers of our time.
England, 1935. Physicist Henry Barstow is on holiday when he meets the mysterious Simon Groom, a representative for an armaments manufacturer. Groom invites the professor to Ixania, a small nation-state in Eastern Europe whose growing weapons program threatens to destabilize the region. Only after suffering a blow to the head--which muddles his brain into believing he is Conway Carruthers, international spy--does the mild-mannered physicist agree to visit Ixania. But he quickly recognizes that Groom has a more sinister agenda, and Carruthers is the only man who can stop him.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Returning to his hotel room after a late-night flirtation with a cabaret dancer at an Istanbul b™ite, Graham is surprised by an intruder with a gun. What follows is a nightmare of intrigue for the English armaments engineer as he makes his way home aboard an Italian freighter. Among the passengers are a couple of Nazi assassins intent on preventing his returning to England with plans for a Turkish defense system, the seductive cabaret dancer and her manager husband, and a number of surprising allies. Thrilling, intense, and masterfully plotted, Journey Into Fear is a classic suspense tale from one of the founders of the genre.

Kenton's career as a journalist depended on his facility with languages, his knowledge of European politics, and his quick judgment. Where his judgment sometimes failed him was in his personal life. When he finds himself on a train bound for Austria with insufficient funds after a bad night of gambling, he jumps at the chance to earn a fee to help a refugee smuggle securities across the border. He soon discovers that the documents he holds have a more than monetary value, and that European politics has more twists and turns than the most convoluted newspaper account.

Eric Ambler is a master of narrative and an elder statesman of suspense. He virtually created the modern spy story with his ground-breaking series of pre-WWII novels; A Coffin for Dimitrios and Journey into Fear are hailed as classics of the form. Waiting for Orders is the first volume to collect Mr. Ambler's shorter works, most of which date from the period of his greatest literary triumphs.

Classic documentary drama based on Walter Lord's book about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Told from the perspective of Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Kenneth More), the story follows the supposedly 'unsinkable' ship as she embarks on her maiden voyage and ultimately founders in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship leaves port and soon Captain Smith (Laurence Naismith) is given several ice warnings but decides not to decrease the Titanic's speed. When the ship hits an iceberg late at night on April 14th the situation looks bleak, especially with the realisation that there are not enough lifeboats to carry all on board. The Titanic's distress call is received by the Carpathia but she is four hours away and unlikely to reach the ship before it sinks. Chaos breaks out both above and below deck as the passengers and crew race against time for their survival.

World War Two drama, based on the best-selling book by Nicholas Monsarrat, starring Jack Hawkins. Lt. Commander Ericson (Hawkins) has already lost one ship to an enemy attack when he is given command of the frigate Saltash Castle. A subsequent confrontation in the North Atlantic tests Ericson's leadership to the limit once again, as he risks sacrificing the lives of his crew for the greater good.

Triple bill of war dramas set at sea. In 'For Those in Peril' (1943), Pilot Officer Rawlings (Ralph Michael) is turned down by the RAF for air service on medical grounds and instead joins Air Sea Rescue, helping to pull downed Allied airmen out of the sea. Rawlings is initially resentful of his new job, but gradually comes to appreciate its importance. When the crew of a Boston bomber become stranded at sea in a dinghy, Rawlings and his colleagues become involved in a race against time - and the elements - to save their lives. 'San Demetrio, London' (1943), set in 1940 during the battle of the Atlantic, is based on a true story. The crew of the petrol tanker San Demetrio are left with a near impossible task when she is torpedoed by the Germans. The crew are forced to abandon ship in three lifeboats. Two are picked up by other ships in the convoy, but the third drifts for days until its crew spies the burning San Demetrio on the horizon. Do they board the ship, try to put out its fires and get it back to English shores or do they stay in the drifting lifeboat in the hope of being rescued? In 'The Cruel Sea' (1953), based on the novel by Nicholas Monsarrat, World War Two Lt. Commander Ericson (Jack Hawkins) has already lost one ship to an enemy attack when he is given command of the frigate Saltash Castle. A subsequent confrontation in the North Atlantic tests Ericson's leadership to the limit once again, as he risks sacrificing the lives of his crew for the greater good.

Re-enactment of the events surrounding the voyage in April 1949 of the Royal Navy frigate Amethyst along the Yangtse river, and the attempts of its crew to get vital supplies to a British Embassy isolated in civil war-riven China. Commander J.S. Kieran (Richard Todd) is forced to brave Communist artillery along the 140-mile stretch to freedom, losing many men en route.