Mild-mannered English physicist Henry Barstow encounters a mysterious Mr. Groom, who represents an armaments manufacturer. Together they travel to the tiny Balkan nation of Ixania, whose nuclear weapons program threatens to destabilize the region. Groom and Barstow, however, have completely separate agendas. Barstow wants to save civilization from the nuclear threat--while Groom simply wants to profit from it.
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.
