In any poll of the best dozen or so thrillers ever written, Ambler's
groundbreaking novel would certainly figure. In many ways, the
author inaugurated (with books like this and Journey into Fear)
the modern spy thriller. His most influential innovation was a
decisive move away from the right-wing certainties of an earlier
generation (Buchan, Sapper, et al) to a more morally ambiguous
world of deception and danger. This, his most famous book, also
contains the device that inspired such writers as Graham Greene:
the everyman hero, finding himself out of his depth in dealing
with evil and murder. The crime novelist Latimer hears about the
evil Dimitrios in Istanbul when looking at the latter's dead body,
freshly retrieved from the Bosphorous. And Latimer makes the mistake
of trying to find out the truth about the murdered man. Wonderfully
atmospheric, with a narrative that commands from the first page,
this is probably the greatest of Ambler's political thrillers.
