The Mask of Dimitrios

First published in 1939, this novel follows Charles Latimer, an English writer of detective stories, who in Istanbul is shown the corpse of Dimitrios Makropoulos, a criminal whose career has touched Smyrna, Sofia, Geneva, and Paris. Curious, Latimer traces the dead man's path through informants, a master spy, and a former associate, reconstructing drug traffic, political murder, and fraud. The closer he comes, the less the case resembles a tidy puzzle. The book is a thriller about a novelist learning real crime, not a locked-room mystery.

Bound in red buckram, cover and spine blocked with a black and white image. Black slipcase. Red endpapers.