A Coffin for Dimitrios, Journey into Fear, The Light of Day

Charles Latimer #1

by Eric Ambler

English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbul when he makes the acquaintance of police inspector Colonel Haki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysterious Dimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios's steps across Europe to gather material for a new book. But, as he gradually discovers more about his subject's shadowy history, fascination tips over into obsession. And, in entering Dimitrios's criminal underworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on the line.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Espionage, Classics, Mystery Thriller

Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Suspense novels of noted English writer Eric Ambler include Passage of Arms (1959).

Eric Ambler began his career in the early 1930s and quickly established a reputation as a thriller of extraordinary depth and originality. People often credit him as the inventor of the modern political thriller, and John Le Carré once described him as "the source on which we all draw."

Ambler began his working life at an engineering firm and then at an advertising agency and meanwhile in his spare time worked on his ambition, plays. He first published in 1936 and turned full-time as his reputation. During the war, people seconded him to the film unit of the Army, where he among other projects authored The Way Ahead with Peter Ustinov.

He moved to Hollywood in 1957 and during eleven years to 1968 scripted some memorable films, A Night to Remember and The Cruel Sea, which won him an Oscar nomination.

In a career, spanning more than six decades, Eric Ambler authored 19 books, the crime writers' association awarded him its gold dagger award in 1960. Joan Harrison married him and co-wrote many screenplays of Alfred Hitchcock, who in fact organized their wedding.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first heard “ISIL” substituted for “ISIS,” I thought “What the heck does the 'L' stand for?” Somebody told me it stood for “the Levant,” and I immediately thought of The Mask of Dimitrios,” my favorite novel of international intrigue.

What is “the Levant”? It is the once-fashionable term for the countries of the eastern Mediterranean rim, comprising ancient Canaan and Asia Minor: Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey. Add to this the Levant's primary areas of influence—Cyprus,Greece, the Balkans—and you have the core of Mehmed II's first Caliphate, for centuries the area where—for good and ill—the Islamic Near East opened itself to the West. And today—bringing us back to the “L” in ISIL—it is the western boundary of what the so-called “Islamic State” consider their rightful sphere.

From the early '20's until the end of the '30's, the time period of Eric Ambler's Dimitrios, there was little talk of radical Islam in the Levant—not surprising, given the heavy hand of the secularist Turkish state—but there was plenty of ethnic cleansing, ideological conflict, political assassination, and crime. Turk slaughtered Armenian, capitalist battled socialist, prime ministers were assassinated, drugs, women and state secrets were bought and sold, and the fascists and communists—delighting in the general unrest—took what advantage they could. Perhaps even more frightening were those individual psychopaths, the fixers, the brokers, the bankers: amoral entrepreneurs who exploited even the fascists and communists, and always seemed to come out on top. The Mask of Dimitrios is a book about such a man.

Dimitrios Makropolous is an interesting character, but it is the manner in which Ambler tells his story—a manner which anticipates the structure of Citizen Kane—that makes it so engaging. Our detective novelist narrator is shown a corpse in the Istanbul morgue and becomes obsessed with discovering the victim's history. As he journeys from Istanbul to Athens, from Geneva to Paris, he interviews people who have known Dimitrios, and each one—the leftwing journalist, the female cafe owner, the master spy, the human-trafficker—has a story to tell. Not only is each of the settings--from a sleazy Athens cafe to a Swiss mountain villa—perfectly realized, but the voice of each subsidiary narrator is individualized as well. Moreover, many of these narrators comment ironically about the principal narrator's naivete or his questionable motives, and this too gives the novel depth and breadth.

Whatever your judgment of Dimitrios Makropolous may be, I am convinced that his grandsons are still with us. Although they are not members of ISIL, Boko Haram or the Taliban, they are there, acting as their middlemen, always ready to make a buck: helping them to choose lucrative targets for kidnapping, to sell their female captives into slavery, to send their heroin through Marseilles to the West.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”A man’s features, the bone structure and the tissue which covers it, are the product of a biological process; but his face he creates for himself. It is a statement of his habitual emotional attitude; the attitude which his desires need for their fulfilment and which his fears demand for their protection from prying eyes. He wears it like a devil mask; a device to evoke in others the emotions complementary to his own. If he is afraid, then he must be feared, if he desires, then he must be desired. It is a screen to hide his mind’s nakedness.”


In From Russia with Love James Bond reads this book to pass the time on a train.

Charles Latimer, professor at a university, and like many men of his profession also a writer of espionage thrillers, was on vacation in Istanbul when he received an invitation to view the body of a notorious criminal named Dimitrios. This brush with a real criminal starts Latimer on an odyssey to build a file on Dimitrios under the guise of research for a book, but the journey was more about satisfying his own curiosity about the man.

Eric Ambler, a left leaning intellectual, fully expected the Soviet Union to be an ally of Britain and his books from this period have sympathetic Soviet block characters. This book was published in 1939 just before Germany declared war on Poland. Ambler wrote five stellar thrillers between 1937 and 1940 of which this is considered his masterpiece. He continued to write after that, but could not capture the spark of his earlier writing. The must read list:

Uncommon Danger (1937), US title: Background to Danger
Epitaph for a Spy (1938)
Cause for Alarm (1938)
The Mask of Dimitrios (1939), US title: A Coffin for Dimitrios
Journey into Fear (1940)

He influenced a whole host of scribblers that are among my favorite writers including Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, John LeCarre, Alan Furst, Len Deighton, and many more.


Eric Ambler the Godfather of the espionage thriller.

Now Latimer is a bit of prig...well... aloof, certainly bordering on self-righteous. Ambler through a host of characters can’t help but poke some fun at Latimer.

”You see Mr. Latimer, I have read one of your books. It terrified me. There was about it an atmosphere of intolerance, of prejudice, of ferocious moral rectitude that I found quite unnerving.”

Another character after a few drinks makes an observation.

”You know,” he said, “you English are sublime. You are the only nation in the world that believes it has a monopoly of ordinary common sense.”

As Dimitrios’s dossier grows Latimer realizes that the books he has been writing are far removed from the real world of an international criminal like Dimitrios. There is nothing in Latimer’s life that would prepare him for his exposure to the feral survival instincts that Dimitrios exhibits when he kills, blackmails, or steals for money.

”But it was useless to try to explain him in terms of Good and Evil. They were no more than baroque abstractions. Good Business and Bad Business were elements of the new theology. Dimitrios was not evil. He was logical and consistent; as logical and consistent in the European jungle as the poison gas called Lewisite and the shattered bodies of children killed in the bombardment of an open town. The logic of Michelangelo’s David, Beethoven’s quartets and Einstein’s physics had been replaced by that of the Stock Exchange Year Book and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”


The movie version was released in 1944 starring Peter Lorre as the Charles Latimer character. They changed his nationality to Dutch probably because of Lorre’s accent. It remains faithful to the book except for the fact that the relationship between Peters and Latimer is much warmer.

Latimer meets a man named Peters, but he could have been called X or Y or Z because his name is a chimera easily changed with just a swirl of the hand. They form an uneasy alliance. Latimer has his teeth firmly sunk in the story and even though he has reservations about his partner he has to see this through.

Latimer wondered if he had ever before disliked anyone quite as much as he now disliked Mr. Peters. It was incredible that he should believe in this tawdry nonsense of his. Yet believe in it he obviously did. It was that belief which made the man so loathsome. If he had his tongue in his cheek he would have been a good joke. As it was he anything but a joke. His mind was divided too neatly. With one half he could peddle drugs and buy rentes and read Poems Erotiques, while with the other he could excrete a warm, sickly fluid to conceal his obscene soul. You could do nothing but dislike him.”

There is a MURDER in SMYRNA. Doesn’t that roll of the tongue heavy with exotic danger?

The war to end all wars was on everyone’s mind when this book was published. The looming menace of another war that would forever change the name of THE world war to the first world war was beginning to be realized.

”So many years, Europe in labour had through its pain seen for an instant a new glory, and then had collapsed to welter again in the agonies of war and fear. Governments had risen and fallen; men and women had worked, had starved, had made speeches, had fought, had been tortured, had died. Hope had come and gone, a fugitive in the scented bosom of illusion. Men had learned to sniff the heady dreamstuff of the soul and wait impassively while the lathes turned the guns for their destruction.”

I found myself at times muttering to myself that Latimer needed to unbutton his collar, maybe skew his tie, and enjoy this bit of intrigue that he finds himself wrapped up in. For me the story started slow, but built nicely. I can tell this is the type of book that improves with each reading. The pacing once it gets going is nicely maintained. The characters are truly dangerous people and I began to wonder how Latimer was going to continue to ask impertinent questions without losing his nose or his life. Dimitrios is kept off screen ;and yet, his menacing apparition lurks in every paragraph. The grand finale is a pyrotechnical display of heroics, betrayal, and greed.

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. According to the jacket this was the first novel in which an everyman is caught in a web of international intrigue. It is very reminiscent of the 39 Steps. One could see Sydney Greenstreet, for example, in the role of Mister Peters. (Or, as it turns out, one did, and forgot that he had. Oops)


Greenstreet as Peters in The Mask of Dimitrios

The protagonist, Mister Latimer, is an economist turned mystery writer who meets a Turkish head of Secret Police in Istanbul. He comes along with him to view the remains of a man recently fished out of the Bosporous, Demetrios Makaloupolos. Conversation about this notorious criminal ensues, and Latimer is hooked. He feels a need to find out the guy’s story. The tale follows him in pursuit of this, to many European locales in many interesting settings. It was quite fun, and resolved rather well also.


Eric Ambler - as an extra on a BBC production

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Better Hope

Anthony Hope, John Buchan, Erskine Childers, and Eric Ambler stole my youth, or at least its imagination. They taught me two important things: that rumours were probably true; and that the world was culturally English (or wanted to be). The first piqued my boyhood interest in conspiracy; the second provided reassurance that conspiracy would be thwarted by virtue. Both these things turned out to be false. But I have no regrets about believing either.

No one seduced me more effectively into the British Empire and its self-image than Ambler. His characters carry the Union flag like a beacon into the murk of foreign intrigue. They mingle but never assimilate. Their integrity is tempted but doesn’t waiver. Local cultures are appreciated, but with a certain off-hand dismissal of unfortunate inferiority. What Ambler writes about of course never existed, never for the nation and rarely for its citizens. But it does represent a cultural ideal which is mightily attractive to a twelve-year old, and even now to an old man.

The England of Ambler and all the others disappeared forever shortly after The Mask of Dimitrios was published in 1939. The Empire not long thereafter. Nevertheless the ideal lives on in their books, one of educated awareness, self-contained confidence, and a certain poise which might be mistaken for courage. It is to be regretted, I think, that this ideal was to be transformed into the likes of Fleming’s James Bond and the scheming denizens of Carré’s London Centre. Or am I just yearning for youthful hope?

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent between-the-wars spy story that sets the bar for later entries into the genre. The tale has also given numerous parts of itself to other writers. A solid bit of Charade, that delightful 1963 Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn spies-in-Paris story, came from this 1939 tale.

But the main thing about reading the book, the primary pleasure unavailable to viewers of the 1944 film The Mask of Dimitrios, is that the movie timeframe makes the story more or less a highlight reel. It also seemed a bit off to me to make this interwar story in the midst of WWII...not a great time for the Balkan/Parisian/Greek dealings or the staunchly anti-bankster tone of the book to be filmed. So, quite naturally, they were left out.

The book unfolds, if not slowly, then at a steady pace and one that simply could not be filmed in that time. Now it would be a 4-hour "event series" as we apparently now call the miniseries of my youth; that would, I feel quite sure, work well to flesh out the filmed version to something like the book's fullness. The story's action takes place by reports and in flashbacks, yet such is Ambler's gift with the gab that it doesn't...didn't to me, anyway...feel draggy or reported.

Skip the three-star film, read the five-star book, and never look back.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

نقاب دیمیتریوس ی داستان جنایی معمایی پر کشش و هیجانه که تحلیل های ریز سیاسی و اخلاقی هم داره، پایان کتاب قابل حدس نیست و نویسنده هم از شاخ و برگ دادن های اضافی برای پیچیده تر کردن غیر ضروری داستان اجتناب کرده و همین ویژگی باعث جذابیت بیشتر سیر داستان شده :

📚 نباید تصور کرد دو کشوری که با هم متحدند، برای همدیگر جاسوس نمی گذارند. دانستن قدرت و ارزش یک متحد همان قدر ضروری است که دانستن توانایی های یک دشمن. متحدان همیشه هم امتیاز شمرده نمی شوند. متحدان همیشه هم صادق نیستند. کشوری که امروز متحد ماست، فردایش دشمن می شود.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

So surprising for me to find this early spy novel to be among the best for tapping into the heart of the “Game” that nations have plied against nations to stay ahead. I read that Ambler finished this work at the perilous time when the Nazis were invading Czechoslovakia in 1939. The lead character Charles Latimer is a novelist who like Ambler himself, gets inspired about international intrigue from the multicultural society he experienced in Istanbul. As a teenager I made the trip he took by boat from Piraeus to Istanbul and experienced the otherworldly sense he got from arrival by water to the bustling harbor of that ancient city with its skyline dominated by famous mosques in their architectural splendor. This parallel hooked me from the beginning.

Latimer milks his contacts to get invited to a party of aristocrats, diplomats, and ex-patriates of various exotic places. Bored by the boozing, the chatter, and decadence (some guests are playing strip poker), he perks up with a conversation with one Colonel Haki, who claims to admire his murder mysteries and offers him plot ideas. It turns out he is the head of the Turkish secret police and has just identified the body of a man fished out of the Bosphorus who was killed by stabbing. A French visa sewn into his jacket indicates him to be Dimitrios Makropoulos, whom Haki has sought since 1922 for the robbery and murder of a Muslimized Jew in Smyrna (Izmir) during the time of terrible slaughter between Greece and Turkey.

From their common interest of making art out of crime and intrigue, Haki challenges Latimer to see anything romantic or noble about the life of Dimitrios. He treats him to a viewing of the body at the morgue:

“Here is a real murderer. We have known of his existence for nearly twenty years. …This man is typical. A dirty type, common, cowardly, scum. Murder, espionage, drugs—that is the history. There were also two affairs of assassination.”
“Assassination! That argues a certain courage, surely?”

Haki denies that. No, this type of man does none of the risky dirty work himself:
They are the professionals, the entrepreneurs, the links between the businessmen, the politicians who desire the end but are afraid of the means, and the fanatics, the idealists who are prepared to die for their convictions.
As far as I know, no government has ever caught him and there is no photograph in his dossier. But we knew him all right, and so did Sofia and Belgrade and Paris and Athens. He was a great traveler, was Dimitrios.

In preparing to dispose of Dimitrios decaying body, Haki hooks Latimer with the idea of filling in the huge blanks in his dossier:
But there must be people who knew of Dimitrios, his friends (if he had any), and his enemies, people in Smyrna, people in Sophia, people in Belgrade, in Adrianople, in Paris, in Lyons, people all over Europe, who could answer them. If you could find those people and get the answers you would have the material for what would surely be the strangest of biographies.
Latimer’s heart missed a beat. …If one did it one would begin with, say, Smyrna, and try to follow one’s man step by step from thjere, using the dossier as a rough guide. It would be an experiment in detection really. …Not that any man in his senses would dream of going on such a wild goose chase—heavens no! But it was amusing to play with the idea and if one were a little tired of Istanbul …

And so Latimer takes up the harmless task of asking questions about this mysterious and notorious figure to satisfy his literary curiosity. But soon, his questions draws the attention of others with an interest in Dimitrios’ secrets. Latimer has to figure out who are Dimitrios’ cohorts who want the secrets to stay that way and who are his enemies and maybe want revenge or money he might have hidden away. Either way, the answers could be dangerous to Latimer. As an average kind of man with a lack of defensive skills, he experiences reasonable trepidations. But he finds he has become obsessed with his pursuit and can’t stop. The suspense drew me on as he makes his rounds with a colorful set of characters as sources in exotic locales of seedy bars and nightclubs in various cities in the Balkans, Paris, and Greece.

Despite a minimum violent pyrotechnics common to modern spy thrillers, this tale entertained me well with its slow unfolding of secrets and atmospherics. It also had a very satisfying surprise ending. It sits well among my old favorites of the genre set during the Cold War by Deighton and le Carre. After that beginning decades ago, I have long been disappointed with the horde of novelists I’ve tried in their wake.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes digging around in the past is just a bad idea, and for British crime writer Charles Latimer he certainly ends up way out of his league, after befriending an inspector from the Turkish police while staying in Istanbul he learns that master criminal Dimitrios Makropoulos has just been fished out the water, killed by an apparent knife to the back. Latimer takes an interest in this mysterious Dimitrios and decides to try and delve into his history to write a true crime novel rather one of fiction, but what starts out as a few general inquiries soon turns into a journey of obsession that sees him travel around Europe, meeting old acquaintances and learning that Dimitrios was mixed up in some serious business including, spies, assassination attempts, people trafficking, drug smuggling and false identities, but just who can be trusted?, and what is to be believed?, could his own life be in danger?, before he knows it things things turn far greater than he could have first imagined!. And he soon realizes that Dimitrios was a very cunning and clever individual.
Although classed in the genre of spy thriller with John le Carré, Robert Ludlum and frederick forsyth coming to mind, "The Mask of Dimitrios" also had the pacing and intrigue of the detective noir novels of the same time period, making this more a hybrid of the two and it works well, Ambler's writing is deep and intelligent placing more emphasis on deep characters at the expense of any exciting thrills, but still retaining some tense moments making for an authentic British crime classic.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything that is published by Penguin Modern Classics is instantly alluring in my mind and, given I’d heard positive things about Eric Ambler, I was keen to sample his work. I’d heard that The Mask of Dimitrios (1939) (aka A Coffin for Dimitrios) was one of his very best.

Charles Latimer, an English crime novelist, is in Istanbul where he meets Colonel Haki of the Turkish secret police. Haki tells Latimer about Dimitrios Makropolous, a murderer, drug dealer, assassin and general rogue, whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated by the story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios's steps across Europe to find out more about him.

The plot conceit of having a writer of detective novels as the protagonist is a great way of contrasting detective novels with real world investigation. The plot machinations of Latimer's investigation make The Mask of Dimitrios a rich source of European history during the early 1920s through to the end of 1930s. Despite WW1 being over, Europe was still awash with ethnic cleansing, ideological conflict, political assassination, and crime. Prime ministers were assassinated, drugs, women and state secrets were bought and sold, and the fascists and communists took what advantage they could. Amoral entrepreneurs like Dimitrios exploited the situation and 'The Mask of Dimitrios' effectively relates his story.

For all the many good things about The Mask of Dimitrios, Charles Latimer is an annoying character: a slow witted and naive prude who really should have foreseen the consequences of much of his decision making. It's hard to imagine that his detective fiction could amount to much. This aspect of the book confused me and undermined my enjoyment. However, putting this qualm to one side, it is an undeniably enjoyable, informative and compelling tale.

4/5

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set (and written) in the late 1930s, Charles Latimer is an English mystery novelist who learns about the roguish life of Dimitrios after he’s taken to view his corpse in the morgue. Murder, slavery, drugs, gambling, prostitutes – Dimitrios had his fingers in a lot of pies! Latimer becomes obsessed with the man’s life and decides to write a biography of the chap, following in his footsteps as he meets Dimitrios’ former criminal associates to build up a portrait of the complex figure. But Latimer’s journey gets the attention of some shady figures with their own interest in “Dimitrios”…

The Mask of Dimitrios (published in the United States as A Coffin For Dimitrios) is described as a mystery thriller overshadowed by the encroaching darkness of fascism in Europe – and it’s none of those things! There’s no mystery to the story. Modern readers will easily see the twist ending of the book looooooong before it comes – I called it in the first chapter and I was right! “Thriller”? The book is largely made up of scenes where Latimer and a character or two sit down before someone begins a 10/20/30 page monologue. And the Germans and Italians possibly starting a war is only mentioned in passing in the last three pages of the book with no strong fascistic presence elsewhere.

That’s not to say I disliked the novel. Eric Ambler’s a fine writer and it’s easy to see how strongly he influenced later novelists like John le Carré as this shows him laying the blueprint for the modern political thriller. But Latimer is a blank slate who is exactly the same at the end as he was at the beginning. I know the story’s not really about him but still, having a semi-interesting protagonist would’ve been nice.

Ambler does create a brilliant character in Mr Peters, an elderly, overweight criminal with watery eyes and a distaste for violence and crime, whose alignment keeps you guessing until the end – is he on Latimer’s side or not? He’s definitely a villain but can he find redemption – does he even want to? We’re kept wondering about this strange fellow. It’s interesting that, in a book featuring Latimer as the protagonist and Dimitrios as the engine, Peters is by far the most memorable character in the story. I suppose that’s due to Peters actually being written as a character rather than as bland audience stand-in (Latimer) or a motivation (Dimitrios).

Though it’s hardly pulse-pounding to hear one character at a time relate lengthy stories about Dimitrios to Latimer, they’re compelling enough for the most part. The guy led an interesting – if despicable - life and hearing about his Scarface-esque construction of a criminal empire from nothing is quite good. But what it builds towards isn’t anywhere exciting. Besides being predictable, the finale is a bit anticlimactic because it’s clichéd and boring.

The Mask of Dimitrios has some good moments here and there, and it’s a decent early, ahem, “thriller” at a time when I’m sure it was considered pacey. But it hasn’t aged that well and, today in comparison and much like Poe and Conan Doyle’s now antiquated detective stories, Ambler’s tricks are quite average leading to an underwhelming story. The Mask of Dimitrios has become a period piece now but still a readable one.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

“But it was useless to try to explain him in terms of Good and Evil. They were no more than baroque abstractions. Good Business and Bad Business were the elements of the new theology.”
― Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios



It is hard not to like Eric Ambler's amateur spies. They aren't reluctant, rather lucky and persistent. They seem to have seeded an entire generation of suspense novelists. Reading Ambler I see exactly what inspired le Carre, Furst, Steinhauer, etc. Ambler has a voice and style which are matched by his ability to capture a reader's interest with characters and setting. He is like a magician that spends an elaborate amount of time carefully setting a formal table just so at the very end he can pull the cloth out -- leaving the characters shaking from the movement, but readers stuck within their own inertia. It is hard to judge Ambler once you realize every reference point you have to judge him by contains a fragment of Ambler. He is the Raymond Chandler of European espionage fiction. The genre doesn't exist separate from the author and 'A Coffin for Dimitrios' is one of his greatest works.
___________________

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance.”

If you like your crime fiction a bit different from the eternal parlour games staged by writers like Agatha Christie, try reading The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler, and you will experience a virtuoso mixture of a novel of detection and a portrait of Europe in the first half of the 19th century, a time that was particularly marked by violence and ruthlessness. Ambler makes us share the dangerous obsession of Charles Latimer, a rather blasé and priggish university professor turned parsonage-mystery writer, that consists in finding out about a mysterious criminal named Dimitrios Makropoulos, whose corpse has been found in the Bosphorus. What starts as a mere whim of fancy, apparently, soon turns out to be a descent into the deepest nightmarish knowledge on human nature because the rather narrow-minded writer not only has to team up with a most insalubrious individual who calls himself Peters but he also has to realize that there exists a sort of evil that makes the villains in his novels look like pale imitations of life. And what’s more, while prying deeper and deeper into the grim past of that unscrupulous and determined man Dimitrios, Latimer not only risks his own life but he, too, will eventually resort to means that may go against the law or are at least questionable from the point of view he has up to now taken in life.

I have known the movie starring Peter Lorre as Latimer (although on screen, the English writer is made into a Dutchman called Leyden) and Sydney Greenstreet as the heavyset but prolix Mr. Peters for ages but only recently read the novel, and I must say that although the film is unforgettable – mainly due to Sydney Greenstreet’s way of creating his larger-than-life character –, it is definitely surpassed by the novel, and I can think of two reasons for saying this: First of all, Peter Lorre has always instilled some kind of sleazy, half-crazy shadiness into his characters, but the Charles Latimer described by Ambler is quite a different person: He has spent most of his life at English universities, which must definitely have been quite different from the places he visits and the persons he meets during his quest for knowledge about Dimitrios, the same as Great Britain, for all its problems after World War I, must have been paradise compared to the Balkans and many other regions in Europe after the Great War. It is one of the fascinating traits of this novel to see how a person like Latimer is wading deeper and deeper into the mire of crookedness and cynicism, and how he reacts to his awareness of this change.

Second, it is simply marvellous to see how Ambler, on the eve of the next World War, gave an account of European politics and the struggle for power that set nations against each other. When he wrote that novel, he had never visited the Balkans himself but only listened to the stories of Greek, Russian and other refugees as he sat in Turkish cafés in Nice but still he manages to create an impression of writing from first-hand experience, and his characters are overwhelmingly believable, especially in their vices and the darker recesses of their souls. While we follow Latimer through the half of Europe, we also learn what the new times are all about – how disturbing this realization must have been for contemporary readers, even though, in principle, not much has changed in our day and age – when the narrator states, from Latimer’s perspective:

”But it was useless to explain him [i.e. Dimitrios] in terms of Good and Evil. They were no more than baroque abstractions. Good Business and Bad Business were the elements of the new theology. Dimitrios was not evil. He was logical and consistent; as logical and consistent in the European jungle as the poison gas called Lewisite and the shattered bodies of children killed in the bombardment of an open town. The logic of Michelangelo’s David, Beethoven’s quartets and Einstein’s physics had been replaced by that of the Stock Exchange Book and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”

And, even more cynically, but clear-sightedly,

”Most international criminals were beyond the reach of man-made laws, but Dimitrios happened to be within reach of one law. He had committed at least two murders and had therefore broken the law as surely as if he had been starving and had stolen a loaf of bread.”

The novel starts a bit slowly but very soon gains momentum, speed and depth, and it is well worth persevering through the first two chapters because you will be rewarded with a clever, breath-taking story as well with a portrait of Europe at that time. I’d also recommend Ian Kershaw’s To Hell and Back as a parallel read.

[Salamon · Rating 4 out of 5]

این کتاب رو که از مدت‌ها پیش (یعنی از سال ۱۳۸۹) توی قفسه‌ی کتاب خاک می‌خورد، خیلی اتفاقی و قبل از یه سفر اتفاقی برای خوندن راحتِ سفری برداشتم. حقیقتش اینه که انتخاب کتاب کاملا هم بر حسب اتفاق نبود. خب تو زمینه‌ی داستانی نشر هرمس یه مجموعه‌ی گسترده‌ای از کتاب‌های ژانر معمایی یا کارآگاهی رو از نویسندگان شهیری مثل آگاتا کریستی و آرتور کانن دویل چاپ کرده و چیزی در همین اشکال به نظرم سرگرم‌کننده و راحت‌خوان اومد.

وقتی فراغتی پیش اومد و سراغ کتاب رفتم، صفحات ابتدایی رو مطابق با شخصیت‌های معمولا دوبعدی ملکه‌ی جنایت دیدم که بیشتر حامل قصه‌ای هستن که قصه‌گو تعریف میکنه تا اینکه از خودشون عمق و احساسات و فلسفه‌ی ویژه‌ای داشته باشن. که البته این مایه‌ی ناراحتی نبود ولی خیلی هم نوید هیجان نمی‌داد. اما از یه جایی به بعد چندین ویژگی جالب در نوشتار اریک امبلر دیدم که بهم ثابت کرد اشتباه میکردم.

یکی اینکه نویسنده یه نگاه فلسفی و روانشناسی به دلایل تصمیمات انسانی میندازه. اینکه هرکسی هر اقدام خودش رو به چه صورت توجیه میکنه. هرکسی موجودیت خودش رو به چه شکل میبینه و در خلوت با خودش چه چیزی میگه. البته باز باید بگم که همچنان کاراکترهای دو بعدی اینجا فراوانند ولی گاهی نقبی به عمق هم زده میشه که لذت‌بخشه. ویژگی دیگه اینه که نویسنده سعی میکنه نوع نگاه متفاوت دولت‌ها به وقایع رو در آستانه‌ی جنگ جهانی دوم تحلیل کنه که نتیجه‌ی کار به نظرم جالب اومده به ویژه اینکه اطلاعات تاریخی نسبتا جالبی هم در این لابلا به دست میاد. نهایتا چیزی که به چشم میاد توجه نویسنده به جزئیات فنی و مکانیسم‌هاست و اینکه شما باید نقشه‌ای ذهنی از وقایع رو که باید بهشون رجوع کنین داشته باشین. این مورد آخر بر جذابیت داستان و حفظ ریتم اثر مثبتی داشت.


بریده‌هایی از کتاب


"معرفی‌نامه مجوزی نامطمئن است. اغلب اوقات صاحب معرفی‌نامه صرفا از روی اتفاق، آشنایی‌ای با واسطه‌ی صدور دارد و به همین منوال به احتمال زیاد صادرکننده هم چیزی از صاحب معرفی‌نامه نمی‌داند. به‌ هر حال، احتمال آنکه صدور معرفی‌نامه سودی رضایت‌بخش برای هر سه داشته باشد، بسیار اندک است."

"در تمدنی که در حال احتضار است، حیثیت سیاسی پاداش آن کسی نیست که بهترین تشخیص را دارد، بلکه پاداش کسی است که بهتر از هرکسی می‌داند چطور با بیمار سلوک کند. این همان نشان افتخاری است که جهالت به میان‌مایگی عطا می‌کند."

"جهانِ تفنن و جهانِ رؤیاهایی که آدم برای خودش می‌سازد، تا وقتی قابل سکونت است که آدم از آن پا بیرون نگذارد. وقتی پرده‌ی میان جهان واقعی و رؤیاها پاره شد، دیگر پاره شده است و کاری نمی‌شود کرد. همچنان آزاد و زنده‌ای، اما در دنیایی از سرخوردگی."

"...در این جهانی که از آنِ همه‌ی ماست، من با زندگی‌ام چه کرده‌ام؟ گاهی فکر می‌کنم شاید بهتر بود ازدواج می‌کردم و خانواده‌ای تشکیل می‌دادم، اما در واقع من همیشه زیاده از حد شوریده‌ام و نگران کلّ جهان. شاید به همین دلیل است که هیچ‌گاه نفهمیدم از زندگی‌ام چه می‌خواهم. بسیاری از ما انسانهای بدبختی هستیم. سال از پیِ سال می‌گذرد و ما مدام در حال جستجو، همواره امیدوار _ برای چه؟ نمی‌دانیم. پول؟ فقط وقتی نداریم به دنبالش هستیم. گاهی فکر می‌کنم یک آدم یک لاقبا از میلیونرها خوشبخت‌تر است چون می‌داند چه می‌خواهد: یک تکّه نان برای خوردن."

"وقتی آدم به سن و سال من برسد، روزها کوتاهتر می‌شوند و آدم هر لحظه فکر می‌کند الآن است که به آخر خط برسد. مثل این است که آدم شب دیروقت به شهری غریب برسد و از این متأسف باشد که کوپه‌ی گرم و نرمش را به مقصد هتلی ناشناس ترک می‌کند و برای همین آرزو می‌کند کاش سفر هیچ وقت تمام نمی‌شد."

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastically gripping journey into an ordinary man's obsession with the life of a detestable criminal.

After the apparent death of wanted criminal Dimitrios Makropolous in Turkey, mystery writer Charles Latimer is drawn into an "experiment in detection" despite his better judgement. He begins tracing Dimitrios's mysterious past, traveling across Europe to uncover any information he can about his life and past exploits. Each criminal affair Latimer uncovers becomes a fascinating episode, with beautifully realized settings and a host of seedy characters that jump off the page. Like a set of nested Russian dolls there is always another to be found underneath, propelling Latimer onwards in his growing obsession. With every step Latimer learns that Dimitrious is more ambitious, cunning and dangerous than previously believed, having left a trail of bodies and tragedy in his wake. Not only a knave and scoundrel, he proves a murderer, a thief, a spy, a pimp, a human trafficker and a drug dealer.

The pace starts slow, with Ambler building curiosity in the mind of the reader together with Latimer. Suspense builds with Latimer's seemingly naive motives becoming suspect, and he becomes entangled in a web of deceit, betrayals and greed. His fiction now becoming his reality, Latimer grows anxious, questioning his own motivations for pursuing such seeming folly. Ambler provides wonderfully insightful, even humorous meta-narration on Latimer and the circumstances of his journey, making this as much a fascinating look at Latimer as it is of Dimitrios.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found A Coffin for Dimitriosto be both fun and brilliant. It's an extremely well-written mystery/thriller with unforgettable characters and plotting. It grabbed me from page one and I was enthralled until the end. But Eric Ambler had more in mind than just writing a thriller. This novel was published in 1939 with the backdrop of European politics. He has something to say about "criminals," "civilized" men and women and the needs of modern society. I'm leaving this vague so as not to spoil the fun.

I cannot recommend this short novel highly enough. The audiobook is masterfully narrated.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[Dimitrios] had the appearance of being tame, but when you looked into his brown eyes you saw that he had none of the feelings that make ordinary men soft, that he was always dangerous."

Published prior to World War II (but aware of some of the tensions), this is a more cerebral spy novel featuring a crime writer who ends up investigating a murder. The novel starts with Latimer in Turkey, talking about his crime writing, and learning about a current police case. He sees the corpse of Dimitrios, a man who had been pursued for some time by multiple governments. Latimer can't let it go and starts to follow the story.

I loved how people were described in particular because it really made me feel like I was there. I received this as part of a long-term postal book swap called #whodunitbymail, where we've been reading a bunch of different types of crime novels. I knew of Eric Ambler because of a guest on the Reading Envy Podcast (episode 074) and had wanted to try him, knowing he had an influence on what I refer to as the "cocktail spy" novels of the post-World War II era.

Some of the reveals were already obvious to me, but that was okay. I think it's all just hyper logical and it is the protagonist who is unused to having to come to the conclusions the right way. Perhaps he gets better at it.

[Charlie Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

La máscara de Dimitrios

La novela más famosa de Eric Ambler de 1939 republicada hace poco por Zenda y admirada por gente como Le Carré, Hitchcock o Green.

La historia sigue a Charles Latimer, un escritor de novelas policíacas que se entera de la muerte de un tal Dimitrios. De una forma un tanto ingenua se compromete a investigar su pasado.

Esta investigación le llevará a recorrer Europa en una época de entre guerras con múltiples conspiraciones, todo tipo de delincuencia con espías, traiciones y crimen organizado.

La novela destaca por el estilo personal de Ambler que narra como un periodista siguiendo a Latimer en su recorrido y con el tal Dimitrios siempre presente, aunque apenas aparezca en escena.

[Theo Logos · Rating 2 out of 5]

”Ingenuity is never a substitute for intelligence, you know.”


A Coffin for Dimitrios is a classic. No, beyond that — it is a sort of ur-novel of the international thriller/spy genre. It’s been praised by John le Carré and Graham Green. It has glowing, five star reviews from some of my favorite and most respected reviewers on this site. So why did I struggle to get through it? Why did it bore me so?

The book’s set up is simple, if improbable. Charles Latimer, a British writer of crime fiction, while casually interviewing a Turkish colonel of secret police in Istanbul, tags along to view the body of Dimitrios, a notorious and elusive criminal that has just been pulled from the sea. The writer of crime fiction becomes first intrigued, then obsessed with the story of this vicious criminal, so much of which is still buried in mystery. He determines that for once, he will become the investigator rather than just writing about it, and sets out on a journey around Europe trying to uncover the mysterious life behind the body he observed. This entangled him in a shadowy world of international intrigue, murder, assassination, human trafficking, and drug dealing.

Sounds exciting. It isn’t. First, Latimer is hardly more than a cypher. Ambler seems to have been going for the Everyman effect with him, but succeeded so well that the character all but disappears into the crowd. To be effective, an Everyman needs to have something to make them a bit distinctive (think Jimmy Stewart and his verbal tics) Latimer doesn’t. Secondly, there is the action, or rather the lack there of. The majority of the book consists of Latimer traveling from one country to another, finding someone who knew or interacted with Dimitrios, and listening as they go into endless monologues that go on for page after page after page talking about the despicable man.

Ah now, but how about that travel around 1930s Europe, you say, wasn’t that at least interesting? Ambler’s ability to set a scene has been praised in many reviews here. And, yes, he is most descriptive. Were you trying to accurately recreate a particular room, Ambler gives you every single detail you would need. It’s precise. It’s nearly clinical. It drags on almost as endlessly as do the monologues about Dimitrios. And it does so without color, cleverness, or interesting turn of phrase.

Which brings us to the dead Dimitrios. At least his story, with all the mystery, escapes from justice, rising from humble roots to rich and notorious international bad guy, at least his story must be interesting? What were his motives? How did he rise from simple fig packer to criminal genius? What made him tick? Sorry, the book gives us none of that. What we learn about Dimitrios is that he was a very, very, very, very bad man.

The book starts slowly, and continues slowly for a long time. The story does pick up a bit in the last third, but it doesn’t justify the boredom of the first two thirds. There is a twist at the end, but as this is one of the earliest novels of this particular genre, almost everyone will suspect the twist coming almost from chapter one. Despite all these complaints, Eric Ambler writes well enough, and the book has a couple of moments, just not enough to salvage the time I invested in it. Two and a half stars, rounded down.

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The English crime novelist, Charles Latimer, is in Istanbul when he hears that the body of a famous criminal, Dimitrios, has been found in The Bosphorus. In order to garner some background information for his new book, Latimer decides to find out more about Dimitrios who has been in most parts of Europe at one time or another. As Latimer uncovers the trail of Dimtrios's wanderings, it becomes apparent that Dimitrios is not actually dead and that Latimer's life is in danger.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

One night, I went out with a friend, who also reads, and met up with some of his friends, most of whom also read. I sat across from this guy who worked at a local Barnes & Noble with my friend, and this guy and I started talking books. I mentioned that I had just read my first book by Alan Furst, and that I loved how he set an espionage story in Europe on the eve of World War II. I haven't read Furst, he said, but I really like Eric Ambler. Right there, that little literary alarm went off in my head, and my nose tingled at the prospect of a new hunt. Who, I asked, leaning forward, is this Eric Ambler?

You know that I went on Amazon that night and looked up Ambler's entire bibliography in print; and you know, fellow Goodreader, that I looked him up on wikipedia and skimmed through his particulars. By the time I stepped away from the computer, I knew that I would be picking up a book by Ambler in the near future. (Such restraint: back then, if I saw a book was brand-spanking new, I held off and told myself to wait for a used copy; these days, I'm not so well-behaved--hence the massive to-read shelf looming over my shoulder like a troll with a law degree and a court summons...).

Eventually, I found a used Eric Ambler book, and that book was a paperback edition (different than what is pictured here, I just preferred to include my review with the lot of them) of "A Coffin for Dimitrios." Soon as I picked up that book and began reading it, I dove right in and lost myself in its dense network of treachery and cloak and dagger.

That friend of my friend was right: Eric Ambler writes a great espionage story set in Europe on the eve of World War II. And the big--no, humongous--difference between him any other writer who tries to do this today is that Eric Ambler was alive and writing in Europe on the eve of World War II. The man knows how to write a good story--and he had his fingers on Europe's erratic pulse in the late 1930s, when governments kept telling themselves and each other that they would never, ever commit the same sins that they had done a few decades before, while at the same time some of them braced themselves for the second coming of the war gods and their insatiable thirst. Meanwhile, people across the continent continued to travel between countries, wielding their passports and visas with casual aplomb; families spread out with the promise of seeing each other again; businesses connected with their clients across various borders; and the general mood on the continent waxed positive, as people recovered from the horror of mass warfare and picked up the efforts and dreams that their predecessors had carried into the early 20th century.

I am fascinated by this period of the 20C, and I relish any book that captures its mood and atmosphere. That Ambler not only does this, but also mixes in a complicated espionage story with believable characters who sweat and bleed and (probably) curse, makes his work a special favorite of mine. And in this book, Ambler is working at his very best. I could not consume it fast enough, and when I was done I felt like telling every person I knew to read this book. Read it now. See what life was like back then, and enjoy a helluva adventure while doing so.

Thank you Lawrence (should you ever come across this), for showing the way to Eric Ambler.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I'd read this in 1939, I'm sure I would have been breathless with astonishment. But I've read John Le Carre and Alan Furst, I know too much about the ugliness of World War II, and in our day and age, we all know about the hypocrisy and duplicity and self-interest of nations.

But Eric Ambler invented this genre, political mystery/thrillers raw with realistic criminals and spies, describing the brilliance, decadence, shabbiness and ambiguity of the secret world.

Enter Charles Latimer. A retired academic, he writes crime novels. At a party, he meets the chief of Istanbul's secret police, who tells him, as everyone does, that he would write a crime novel if he had the time. He asks Latimer if he'd like to get a little closer to real crime...and then brings him to the morgue, where he shows him the water-logged corpse of an infamous criminal named Dimitrios.

Dimitrios is a twisted Gatsby. Struggling to survive in a post-World War I society of war, catastrophe, and genocidal hatred, he dreams of a better life for himself, and creates it--powered by robbery, drug-dealing, treachery, murder. Dimitrios murders to survive, to protect his identity, to topple governments, to safeguard a bank's investments. He's a monster for hire.

Latimer is tantalized, then fascinated, then obsessed. Off he goes to the far reaches of Europe, to follow the trail of Dimitrios's crimes, telling people he meets that he's doing research for a novel, but really, he's just eager to have a whiff of real evil.

What amazed me was this. A Coffin for Dimitrios was published in 1939--the year World War II began. It is a wise and intelligent warning on what lay ahead for Europe, traveling through countries we never think of and keeping company with people we are better off not knowing, showing the reader exactly what kind of corrupt, frightening, pitiless people were in power, the nature of the people who worked for them, and what ugly acts they were willing to commit in order to hold on to that power.

Here's the link to a much better review, by the incomparable Jeffrey Keeten: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Eternauta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αριστοτεχνικό νουάρ, ένα από τα καλύτερα που έχω διαβάσει ποτέ.

Ο Ambler συνθέτει μέσα στη δίνη της δεκαετίας του '30, όταν τα δυτικά κράτη βαδίζουν υπνωτισμέ��α προς τον όλεθρο του πολέμου, μια ιστορία τυφλής αναζήτησης. Δεν υπάρχει έγκλημα προς λύση παρά μόνο η απορία του ήρωα για τον χαρακτήρα και τα κίνητρα ενός κυνικού και αδίστακτου εγκληματία: ο Δημήτριος Μακρόπουλος - μορφή σκιώδης και ήδη νεκρός από την αρχή της διήγησης - ασκεί ταυτόχρονα απέχθεια και σαγήνη στον αφηγητή αλλά και στον αναγνώστη. Η ιχνηλάτηση της πορείας του απο την Σμύρνη του 1922 έως το προπολεμικό Παρίσι λειτουργεί και σαν μια ελεγεία για τον κοσμοπολιτισμό του μεσοπολέμου που αργοπεθαίνει καθώς το βιβλίο ολοκληρώνεται (αφηγηματικά όσο και στην πραγματικότητα, αφού χρονιά έκδοσης είναι το 1939).
Ουσιαστικά δημιουργώντας πλοκή μέσα από αναμνήσεις και περιπλανήσεις σε αστικά τοπία, το βιβλιο αποτυπώνει αδρά το δέος που νιώθει ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας καθώς η σκιά του φασισμού πνίγει αργά και αναπόφευκτα την παλιά Ευρώπη.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good:
So much tension! This is very well written and had me second guessing everyone. The settings are gorgeous, illustrating the magic and paranoia of interbellum Europe. And Mr Peters is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever read.

The Bad:
After building up to a big reveal I was horrified to find that Dimitrios was not Colonel Haki of the Turkish secret police. The protagonist was also a bit dull, obviously written to appeal to the target audience of the time.

'Friends' character the protagonist is most like:
Mr Latimer reminded me a lot of Frodo Baggins actually. He was brave and polite and completely out of his element. As a 'Friends' character he was most like one of the Brits who made a cameo on the episode with Ross's wedding.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The baroque in human affairs is always interesting, don't you think?"

'Baroque' is a word that carries a dual meaning of 'ostentatious' combined with 'irregularly shaped'. It is a word most often applied to physical art of some kind, usually architecture. It describes ornate, intricate design. 

In 'The Mask of Dimitrios' (aka in the US by the inferior title, 'A Coffin for Dimitrios'), 'baroque' is used indirectly to describe the novel's titular character; a man whose particularly splashy talent is nevertheless shadowy and inconspicuous, and whose 'shape' is consistently irregular. He has a seemingly infallible knack for detonating chaos before vanishing into thin air.

Two men form an alliance to hunt down this enigma, in a now-vintage spin on the spy story. For one of these men, the pursuit (of a former 'colleague') is duplicitous business as usual. But the other - Charles Latimer - is a mystery writer (who took to fiction upon falling into ennui as a university lecturer on political economy). Latimer's personal fascination progressively gets the better of him; he wrestles with his conscience re: the ultimate worth of seeing the mystery through. 

The novel's initial attack echoes Macduff in 'Macbeth': "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece." Dimitrios has apparently succeeded in taking himself out of any future equation. He has shown up dead; murdered. 

Latimer being a civilian is what removes the novel from the world of John le Carré and those of his ilk. The fiction writer isn't hampered by the trappings that define the typical man of espionage. That makes him much more accessible for the average reader; there's more of a feeling that you are in his shoes.

My main interest in the novel came from being a fan of the 1944 American noir starring the often-teamed Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet  As a film, it's quite effective but I remained curious about how the novel might differ. It doesn't differ all that much - but the novel does stand out in the exact way that Eric Ambler tells his richly detailed and darkly atmospheric story.  

[S. ≽^•⩊•^≼ I'm not here yet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Eric Ambler book I read was a good experience. Charles Latimer is an English spy thriller writer because of his curiosity, struggled in the middle of a Spy Thriller himself try to chase an old criminal known as Dimitrios. Don't be so curious to make trouble.

''Don't try!''.

[Patrick Sherriff · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent crime thriller from the 1930s. Better than Agatha Christie. My full review is here: patricksherriff.com/2020/01/06/the-ma...

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I am sorry,' said Latimer uncomfortably. 'The real reason why I want this information from you is so peculiar that I hesitated to give it.'

An excellent crime novel that well deserves its classic status.

Latimer is a mystery writer on holiday. He's supposed to be writing his next book--especially now that he doesn't have his Oxford salary to depend upon--but instead, he's treading water. He finds himself introduced to a Colonel Haki who has a mysteriously high and dangerous position with the Turkish police and who has, of course, a slightly hackneyed plot he wants to pitch. ("He was always meeting people who felt they could write detective stories if they had the time.") More interesting to Latimer is the offer Colonel Haki impulsively extends to him: want to see the washed-up corpse of a sordid real-life criminal? I am obviously being invited to the wrong lunches with the wrong people, because they never end like this.

Dimitrios was a large-scale drug dealer, a pimp, and a murderer, utterly unlike the characters Latimer has been writing, situated in their orderly country houses. Without being able to explain why, Latimer becomes obsessed with learning more about Dimitrios and filling in the missing gaps of his biography, the times when his name changes or underground movements were so successful that the system lost track of him. This leads him on a journey across Europe as he does the legwork to piece together Dimitrios's life across borders and jurisdictions. Soon enough, unsurprisingly, this embroils him in peril and additional mystery.

Ambler is a smooth, nuanced, and often funny writer. He can take on with equal aplomb a long, chilling speech describing the slow descent into drug addiction and a tongue-in-cheek description of dangerous absurdity: "A person who searched rooms, brandished pistols, dangled promises of half a million franc fees for nameless services and then wrote instructions to Polish spies might reasonably be regarded with suspicion." His depiction of the seamy criminal demimonde is realistic. It has intrigue but no glamour; it's full of self-aggrandizement and routine betrayal. Impressively, he makes Dimitrios a deadly and legendary figure without making him superhuman. He has "very brown, anxious eyes that make you think of a doctor's eyes when he is doing something to you that hurts." By the standards of the genre, he hardly even kills anyone, but Ambler is attentive to the trail of ruined lives he leaves behind him. The further Latimer delves into Dimitrios's life, the less Dimitrios fascinates him as an individual and the more he fascinates him as a symbol of the time (1939): "The logic of Michelangelo's David, Beethoven's quartets and Einstein's physics had been replaced by that of the Stock Exchange Yearbook and Hitler's Mein Kampf." Dimitrios is, more than anything else, a ruthless businessman.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic from 1939 that had great impact in it's day and influenced writers of mysteries and thrillers for several decades after. Ambler made extensive use of narrative and flashbacks to advance the plot, with a few memorable twists and turns along the way. I found this technique interesting and quite engaging, though at times it slowed the pace and tended to muddle the story. Most of the characters in the novel were one dimensional "types". The lone exception was Mr. Peters. From start to finish, Mr. Peters was unusual, interesting, somewhat shifty and never easy to figure out. In the film version of the novel, Mr. Peters was played by Sydney Greenstreet - a perfect choice for the part.

Enjoyed reading this one and it held my interest throughout. That speaks well for a book that was a pioneer of the genre and is now 85 years old.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can smell Orson Welles off the pages - or maybe it's Graham Greene? Nevetheless it's the start of the war years in Europe circ. late 1930's and there is the innocent bystander who is drawn into a world that he truly doesn't understand. In other words welcome to the world of Eric Amber.

The classic suspense writer and this is a great classic thriller. And back to Welles, it reminds me of The Third Man - not in plotting, but just the feel of dread in Europe at the time. But wait Third Man takes place after the war - well, this is right before the war. Same thing!

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charles Latimer has made enough of a success of writing mystery novels that he’s been able to resign his university professorship to dedicate himself to fulltime writing. Unexpectedly, while traveling through Turkey, Latimer encounters a fan: Colonel Haki. Haki reveals the details about a Greek criminal whose body washed up in Istanbul. Police across the Near East and Central Europe have spent decades searching for Dimitrios Makropoulos, a shadowy criminal who has engaged in burglary, fraud, heroin trafficking, murder, espionage and even some attempted assassinations.

The more Latimer learns about Dimitrios, the more intrigued the writer becomes in this real-life crime story. Latimer travels around interviewing people who knew Dimitrios, including drug dealers, spies and a brothel owner. But does Latimer learn too much for his own good?

Latimer may remind readers of Richard Hannay from John Buchan’s The 39 Steps or Jimmy Stewart from any number of movies: a babe in the woods up against forces more cunning and ruthless than he. But while those two examples provided a sympathetic character and plenty of danger and suspense, author and spy novelist Eric Ambler does not imbue this particular book with much of either. It was a chore to finish it.

This book has also been published as The Mask of Dimitrios.