Francis Clifford (1917–1975)

Imagine my disappointment. I thought this was going to be a library management treatise on dealing with people who bring their books back late, Instead it is a nightmare of terror and suspense including a girl fixing her brassiere followed by a plane crash.

Time is an Ambush by Francis Clifford

The only book I've ever judged by its cover, my edition is a hardback with a yellow and brown dust jacket that appealed to me 15 years ago when I bought it for 35p from a junk shop. It's a crime novel - a man meets a girl on the beach, they start an affair, her husband is a brute who soon turns up dead. I thought it rather well written.

Francis Clifford was successful in the UK in the Sixties, he's pretty much forgotten now - I had never heard of him when show more I bought this book - he had two novels filmed including Naked Runner which starred Frank Sinatra. The book is very much of its time, especially in the attitude of its protagonist, an English writer working on his novel in Franco's Spain in the early sixties. His superior attitude to the locals and his casual assumption of the rights that are due to him as an Englishman seem quaint and dated now.

I'd happily read another book by him, but I doubt he'll ever be re-discovered by the wider world. show less

Francis Clifford is a pen name of Arthur Leonard Bell Thompson, an ex-soldier who fought in WW2.

Naked Runner (1966) is one the latter books in his career and according to the London Book Club it is the best novel he has written and "puts him immediately into the front rank of contemporary novelists of suspense".

The story itself is pretty solid set in the "present" of 1966 - Sam Laker gets asked to do a "simple favour" and deliver something when he's visiting Leipzig, East Germany (aka The show more German Democratic Republic). Naturally he's caught and his son is held hostage and he pressured by the East German Stasi to assassinate someone for them... he fails and his son is executed... and so the story moves onto a tale of revenge as he returns to East Germany. There's also a nice unexpected twist at the end, you think there's something going on and think you've got it worked out... but the truth is different than anticipated.

Quite enjoyable but definitely dated. show less

Really enjoyable read. Good characterisation and nice twist at the end. Would make a good film...