Ambler’s best known works are probably The Mask of Dimitrios (1939) (published in the US under the title A Coffin for Dimitrios), which was made into a film in 1944, and The Light of Day (1962), filmed in 1964 as Topkapi. He was also a successful screenwriter and lived in Los Angeles in his later years. Amongst other classic movies based on his work are Journey into Fear (1943), starring Joseph Cotten, and an original screenplay, The October Man (1947). He wrote the screenplay for A Night to Remember about the sinking of the Titanic, along with many other screenplays, particularly those concerning stories and adventures at sea. He published his autobiography in 1985, Here Lies Eric Ambler.

A recurring theme in Ambler’s books is the amateur who finds himself unwillingly in the company of hardened criminals or spies: an ordinary person working under extraordinary circumstances.  Typically, the protagonist is out of his depth and often seems for much of the book a bumbling anti-hero, yet eventually manages to surprise himself as well as the professionals by a decisive action that outwits his far more experienced opponents. This plot is used, for example, in Journey into Fear, Epitaph for a Spy, The Mask of Dimitrios, Passage of Arms, The Light of Day and Dirty Story. In Ambler’s books, unlike in most other spy novels, the protagonist is rarely a professional spy, or a policeman or counter-intelligence operative.

A number of Ambler’s characters feature in more than one novel: Andreas Zaleshoff and his sister Tamara in Uncommon Danger and Cause for Alarm, Charles Latimer in The Mask of Dimitrios and The Intercom Conspiracy, Arthur Abdel Simpson in The Light of Day and Dirty Story, and Zia Haki appears as a Colonel Haki of the Turkish secret police in The Mask of Dimitrios and Journey Into Fear and is mentioned as a General Haki in The Light of Day.

THE DARK FRONTIER
UNCOMMON DANGER (BACKGROUND TO DANGER – US title)
EPITAPH FOR A SPY
CAUSE FOR ALARM
THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS – US title)
THE ARMY OF THE SHADOWS
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
JUDGEMENT ON DELTCHEV
THE SCHIRMER INHERITANCE
THE NIGHT-COMERS (STATE OF SIEGE – US title)
PASSAGE OF ARMS
THE LIGHT OF DAY (TOPKAPI – US title)
THE ABILITY TO KILL AND OTHER PIECES (NON FICTION)
A KIND OF ANGER
DIRTY STORY (THE GUN FOR HIRE – US title)
THE INTERCOM CONSPIRACY (THE QUIET CONSPIRACY – TV series title)
THE LEVANTER
DOCTOR FRIGO
SEND NO MORE ROSES (THE SIEGE AT THE VILLA LIPP – US title)
THE CARE OF TIME
HERE LIES: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Short stories
WAITING FOR ORDERS
THE ARMY OF SHADOWS
THE BLOOD BARGAIN
THE INTRUSIONS OF DR. CZISSAR
THE STORY SO FAR
THE BLOOD BARGAIN
THE INTUSIONS OF DR DZISSAR
THE ONE WHO DID FOR BLAGDON COLE