Eric Ambler is at the top of his form with A Kind of Anger, which expertly combines a satire of paparazzi-driven media culture with a classic espionage tale filled with breathless suspense.

Six weeks ago, Lucia Bernardi fled the Swiss villa where her lover was murdered—and then she vanished. No one can find her: Not the police, who want her for murder; not the tabloids, who want her for her story; nor the real killers, who desperately want the papers she spirited away from the scene of the crime. Disgraced reporter Piet Maas stumbles upon Lucia, in hiding in the south of France. There he must decide whether to publish her story—reviving his career but guaranteeing her death—or to join in her perilous extortion scheme, and risk both their lives for the promise of profit.