Rating: 
Summary: very good read not enough mystery
Review: It is a very good refreshing read which keeps you turning pages, however, there is practically no mystery element and some moments which border with unbelievable, otherwise it is simply excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: A timeless masterpiece
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric and distinctive
Review: Not your average 30s spy thriller! Most vintage spy thrillers are in the John Buchan mold, but this one was very different.
Just a fun fun book.
Rating:
Summary: a thinking person's detective story
Review: One of the absolute best and most original
crime/espionage novels. Ambler creates fascinating
characters and wonderful color. The plot is
intricate and nicely paced. Ambler is one of the
few people in this genre who actually writes
good sentences, in the way one might say of that
F. Scott Fitzgerald. To be sure, he is not quite
in that league, but he remains leagues above the norm.
The book also manages to be something very unique:
a form of popular entertainment that has a serioussocio-political point to it. This subtext is woven
seamlessly into the narrative so it never sounds like
preaching...at times I wish it was actually a little
less subtle. All in all, an wonderful book (especially
grand if you can read it on a train travelling
across Europe--a feeling it is highly evocative of).
Rating:
Summary: Ambler did it best
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Eloquent 1920's and 30's Continental Suspense classic
Review: There are some things they just don't do as well as they used to and this book is a prime example. First of all, publishers seem to think that Americans will only read books involving Americans. Who would publish a book that has an expatriate Englishman trying to unearth the secrets of a dead Greek in sites including Turkey, Sofia, Athens, Geneva and Paris. Yet that is a huge part of what makes this book so special. It is a very "continental" tale. For me as a reader, it's the difference between great French cuisine and McDonalds. There's also the inevitable time difference. Even though the book focuses on much of the underbelly of life, it does so with an eloquent voice of its time. It's hardly a cozy, but the suspense is a product of thought and atmosphere - not gadgets and gore. This review is based on the unabridged audiotapes which are a treat with lots of different accents. Since much of the book is told as a series of verbal stories about Dimitrios, it seems all the more appropriate for them to be heard as stories. So, tired of modern cookie cutter mysteries and thrillers? Treat yourself to this classic and be transported to another world.
Rating:
Summary: 1930's Vintage Noir!
Review: This is a quite wondeful little book. It is hard to believe that a book that was written so many years ago could still be thrilling and exciting today. I now understand why Ambler is thought to be the father of the spy novel. It would be difficult to find a writer today that could build up this kind of suspense and intrigue. I couldn't help thinking as I was reading it that it would make a great black and white movie, and then I found out that it actually was made into a movie in the 40's. Peter Lorre and Greenstreet starred in it. It would be nice to see this old movie now that I've read the book. The book is set mostly in the Balkans, but Ambler takes the reader to Athens and Paris too. The story is about a mystery writer's curiosity to trace the life of a criminal that he first sees dead on a slab in Turkey. Charles Latimer gets pulled into all kinds situations while he pursues the truth. The story is action-filled right to the end. This has to be one of the best books from the 30's (at least in this genre).
Rating:
Summary: 1930's Vintage Noir!
Review: This is a quite wondeful little book. It is hard to believe that a book that was written so many years ago could still be thrilling and exciting today. I now understand why Ambler is thought to be the father of the spy novel. It would be difficult to find a writer today that could build up this kind of suspense and intrigue. I couldn't help thinking as I was reading it that it would make a great black and white movie, and then I found out that it actually was made into a movie in the 40's. Peter Lorre and Greenstreet starred in it. It would be nice to see this old movie now that I've read the book. The book is set mostly in the Balkans, but Ambler takes the reader to Athens and Paris too. The story is about a mystery writer's curiosity to trace the life of a criminal that he first sees dead on a slab in Turkey. Charles Latimer gets pulled into all kinds situations while he pursues the truth. The story is action-filled right to the end. This has to be one of the best books from the 30's (at least in this genre).
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: This is my first Ambler novel and I am definitely hooked. The writing style is crisp, the plot development stylish, the characters real, and the novel itself is nicely complex! I liken Ambler to Patricia Highsmith in certain ways, except that I find Ambler's plot lines and characters to be much richer and real-life, without the obvious ethical/moral ambivalence that marks Highsmith's writing. As others have written before me, it is indeed difficult to believe that Ambler wrote this so long ago. At times, the reader feels the era of the 1930s but mostly the story could as easily be set in the modern era, too. This is a great read and one that can go quickly if you have several days to spend with one book. I highly recommend A Coffin for Dimitrios and am looking forward to my next Ambler novel!
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: This is my first Ambler novel and I am definitely hooked. The writing style is crisp, the plot development stylish, the characters real, and the novel itself is nicely complex! I liken Ambler to Patricia Highsmith in certain ways, except that I find Ambler's plot lines and characters to be much richer and real-life, without the obvious ethical/moral ambivalence that marks Highsmith's writing. As others have written before me, it is indeed difficult to believe that Ambler wrote this so long ago. At times, the reader feels the era of the 1930s but mostly the story could as easily be set in the modern era, too. This is a great read and one that can go quickly if you have several days to spend with one book. I highly recommend A Coffin for Dimitrios and am looking forward to my next Ambler novel!
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