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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.