Clark started working for local papers , including the '' Erdington News '' and the '' Birmingham Post '' , before moving to '' The Daily Mail '' . In 1958 , he joined '' The Guardian '' , where he wrote authoritative backgrounders to major events of the time , such as the Great Train Robbery . From 1964-72 , Clark worked for '' The Observer '' , where he served as Home Affairs Editor and head of the Investigative Unit . Here , his exposure of London 's casinos led the Home Secretary , Roy Jenkins , to introduce swingeing new controls that cleaned up the British gambling scene and sent many American ' businessmen ' scurrying home . ' In 1967 , Clark contributed a chapter ' Underworld ' to '' Len Deighton 's London Dossier '' published by Jonathan Cape and Penguin . The book 's cover described it as ' an alternative new way of taking the city apart . ' In 1969 , Clark 's first book was '' Everybody 's Guide to Survival : A Handbook on Danger - How to Prevent It or Live through It '' . His solution to the problem of escaping from a submerged car led to a 1968 television appearance on ATV 's ' Tonight with Dave Allen ' . ' A tank was rigged up in the studio car park : the about-to-be-submerged pair discovered to their horror that the car , an old banger , leaked like a sieve . ' If things go wrong we 'll smash the tank , ' the director assured them . ' Do that and you 'll kill us both , ' said Eric . He and Allen were nevertheless lowered in – and survived . ' In 1973 , Clark wrote '' Corps Diplomatique '' , later published in the US as '' Diplomat '' . The book showed how ' the old school of diplomacy is dying . Modern communications have diminished the diplomat 's autonomy ... the U.S. State Department has recently demonstrated some iconoclastic feminism , and egalitarian recruiting has undercut the aura of aristocracy ... Clark occasionally chides the vestigial formalities such as calling cards ... suggesting that , after all , diplomats are nothing more than ' glorified journalists . ' His portrayal of espionage , propaganda , and posts behind the Iron Curtain and at the U.N. is dispassionate and objective . ' In 1988 , Clark released '' The Want Makers '' , a look at the rise of advertising , revealing how deeply the industry has come to affect every area of life . This was another international investigation , based on firms in London , Tokyo , and New York . In the book , Clark describes ' in exhaustive detail an industry that targets as captive customers children , who spend more time watching TV than in school and can zero in on consumer ' grazers ' 18 – 30 years old , who eat lightly and often and buy more of everything than anyone else . He shows us tobacco and liquor advertisers who subtly evade regulation , giant pharmaceutical companies with identical therapies that push their own brand names on doctors through gifts , entertainment and a barrage of trade ads , and political TV spots that overwhelm democracy in national elections . ' In 2007 , '' The Real Toy Story was published . '' Clark contrasted the ruthless pragmatism of the international toy industry with the cozy lovable image of the products it sells . He interviewed 200 industry insiders , from lone inventors to heads of multinational companies , and also investigated the Chinese sweatshops , where 80 % of the world 's toys are made : ' This is where toys are produced for a few cents each by vast numbers of young migrants toiling in sweatshop conditions . This is the hidden face of the toy industry , without which it could not exist . The Pearl River Delta , China . The workshop of the world . Behind high fences , sprawling factory compounds stretch mile after dusty , depressing mile along the congested roads . Guarded gates control entry and exit . Adjoining many of the blocks are identical concrete boxes – the washing at the chicken-wire-covered windows , adding flashes of colour , is the only indication that these are the dormitories . Between shifts , the workers , mostly young women , their faces set in exhaustion , shuffle from building to building . Shifts can last more than 15 hours a day , seven days a week ... ' Between 1977 and 1985 , Clark wrote five espionage novels . The first , '' Black Gambit '' , influenced by John le Carré , concerns a plan to rescue a Soviet dissident under house arrest by substituting a double for him . '' Kirkus Reviews '' described the book as ' revamped escape-from-behind-the-Iron-Curtain ... ( with ) the quiet , cumulative force and the clean , cinematic through-line that more convoluted spy-thrillers miss out on . ' Clark 's second novel , '' The Sleeper '' , which was published in 1980 , was judged by Kirkus to be his most successful : ' Clark 's quietly impressive spy debut , '' Black Gambit '' ( 1977 ) , had everything but original twists — and now he has those too , in a swift , cleanly knotted festival of ironies ... Dark-edged characters , shards of raw action , implicit moral dilemmas left and right , plus a last-page punchline guaranteed to elicit a gasp or groan . ' With '' Send in the Lions '' , in 1981 , Clark set the story of a plane hijack in the near future : ' It 's 1985 , and a terrorist band ( including cool-killer Karen , a Dutch diplomat 's daughter ) hijacks a Concorde jet carrying , among others , a US movie queen , the Soviet deputy foreign minister , the son of billionaire Andrew Muntwick ... and an ugly little nobody named Ross whom Karen loathes on sight . And when the plane is forced to land in Algeria , the terrorists and these prime hostages disappear ... How will the governments react ? ... ' The reviewer found the book ' more like a film scenario than a full-scale novel ... swiftly readable but disappointingly sketchy . ' Clark 's last two novels , '' Chinese Burn '' ( 1984 ) and '' China Run '' ( 1985 ) were both set in China . According to Kirkus , '' Chinese Burn '' had ' none of the grabs of Clark 's best suspense ( '' The Sleeper '' ) -- but readers may forgive the predictability ... in order to enjoy the richly detailed , well-researched Chinese backgrounds . '
Great Train Robbery
Great Train Robbery (1963)
Eric Clark (author)