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88 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"It is not who fired the shot, July 22, 2005
but who paid for the bullet." Compact, amusingly cynical little sentences such as the above bubble up throughout Eric Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" and, in fact, throughout most of Ambler's books. That is just one reason why Ambler's books are so enjoyable and have held up so well over time. For those not familiar with his work, Ambler was to the modern British spy novel what Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett were to the American detective novel. Ambler transformed the spy novel from a simplistic black and white world of perfect good guys versus nefarious bad guys into a far more realistic world where sometimes the difference between good and evil is not all that great. Typically, Ambler would take an unassuming, unsuspecting spectator and immerse him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe. The result was a series of highly entertaining and satisfying books that many believe set the stage for the likes of le Carre, Deighton, and, most recently, Alan Furst. A Coffin for Dimitrios was one of Ambler's best known works. (It was made into a movie starring Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet.) It is a very entertaining read. The plot is relatively easy to follow. Charles Lattimer is a British University professor who retired from academia once he discovered that writing mass market detective stories was far more lucrative. While on holiday in Istanbul he makes the acquaintance of a Turkish police inspector who is an admirer of Lattimer's work. Lattimer is invited to the policeman's office where he is provided with ideas for a book the police officer is writing. While there he is invited to join the officer in viewing the body of a master criminal, Dimitrios, who has just been fished out of the Bosporus. Lattimer, fascinated by sketchy but lurid details of Dimitrios criminal career, decides to trace Dimitrios steps in the hopes that he will obtain new material for future detective stories. Lattimer travels from Turkey to Greece, Bulgaria, Switzerland and France in search of background information. Of course, anyone seeking such information in the corridors of the criminal underworld immediately becomes the object of attention, some of it quite dangerous. The story of Dimitrios' life is peeled away like an onion. Bits of information are revealed at each stop. Lattimer discovers that Dimitrios' actions sometimes had a sinister political connection. As the novel reaches its climax the final bits of information needed to complete the puzzle that is Dimitrios are revealed. A Coffin For Dimitrios made for an excellent read. Some readers may find it a bit quaint. Some may find Ambler's prose a bit old-fashioned. But when one considers that Ambler's books were written close to 70 years ago I don't think it particularly fair to harp overly much on a writing or prose-style that doesn't quite match that of a le Carre or Deighton. A Coffin for Dimitrios and most of the rest of Ambler's works have been re-issued in new paperback editions by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Press. They are in print and readily available. I don't hesitate to recommend A Coffin for Dimitrios or any of Ambler's works. They are perfect for leisure reading whether at the beach or elsewhere. Last, if you have enjoyed the works of John le Carre, Deighton, Ian Fleming, or Alan Furst, it is worth a trip to Ambler to see one of their literary ancestors in action.
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44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ambler did it best, July 14, 1998
Ordinarily, I don't read thrillers, but since this was one of my mother's favorite books, I thought I would give it a try. What a surprise! Instead of some overblown macho stud like James Bond, the protagonist is Charles Latimer, a quiet English academic, who becomes intrigued by the death of an arch-felon, Dimitrios Makropoulos. He decides to find out more about this Dimitrios, and winds up traversing Europe from Istanbul to Paris. There are no gimmicks in Ambler's writing; he presents a mystery and unravels it. Supposedly, Ambler is responsible for the "modern" spy thriller. If so, he did it well, but the genre devolved after him. A Coffin for Dimitrios is a superb book whether it is classified a mystery, thriller, or whatever.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A timeless masterpiece, June 24, 1999
By A Customer
It's amazing how quickly the books of second-rate writers become dated. I'm partial to thrillers, and my bookshelf groans with stories, set in the Cold War, that I will never read again. Their settings are as strange to me now as the Roman Empire or renaissance Europe. Their time is past. No so Ambler. 'Dimitrios' is based on people, not place. He created so many memorable characters: the Turkish secret policeman, clownish off-duty, ruthless and cold-eyed at his work; the Bulgarian good-time girl, whose head and heart told her different things; the hen-pecked offical in Belgrade, with his greedy wife; the respectable cafe-owner who slides, without resistance, into the lucrative world of prostitution and drug-smuggling; the successful Swiss businessman whose business just happened to be selling secrets. These are not people I have come across in real life, but they all strike me as flesh-and-blood characters. I could imagine having a fascinating conversation with any of them. In terms of place, the end of the Cold War has actually helped Ambler. We (I'm British) seem to have returned to the Europe of the inter-war years: corrupt, amoral, nervy, and prone to occasional outbursts of horrific violence. The significant difference, of course, is that we have no Hitler around now. In 'Dimitrios', Hitler is never mentioned by name, but he is always there, hovering, as it were, just out of the corner of your eye. Ambler's prose is wonderful. He tells a complicated story so well, lingering just long enough to sketch in profiles of people and places, before getting on with the plot. Three passages linger in my memory: the massacre of the inhabitants of Smyrna; the entrapment of the Yugoslav offical; and Peters' description of how intelligent and worldly-wise people become addicted to heroin. Ambler's prose is spare and cynical, yet there is a dash of pity as well. Unlike so many novelists today who give the impression that their characters are no more than specimens on the lab bench, you feel that Ambler saw his characters as people. For a novel whose subject-matter is so dark, the reader finishes it feeling satisfied and enriched. An enjoyable and profitable read.
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