I received a book for Christmas from a retired English lecturer. I admire her, tremendously, for many reasons more especially for her personal library collection consisting of more than a thousand books. The week before Christmas last, she pressed an orange-covered paperback into my hand, wished me a happy festive season and announced that she was off for the upcoming holidays. My Christmas book gift was The Ambassador by the late South African author, Andre P. Brink (1935 - 2015). It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1967, at the height of the pulp fiction era, when Brink was in his early thirties. He wrote in his author's note that '' The Ambassador was the result of my first prolonged exposure to Paris as a student (1959 - 1961)...'' but, what struck me and piqued my interest was the book's dedication, three words floating in the centre of a yellowed pulp page, ''In memoriam, Ingrid'' .* The Ambassador 's plot