The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler 10 out of 10

 The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

10 out of 10

 

 

Detective stories have often been dismissed as less worthy of a sophisticated, better educated public and with finesse and self-deprecation, the author himself has included ironies on the subject in this exquisite, very rewarding psychological, captivating thriller, that starts off in Turkey, moves on to Greece, Bulgaria on a quest for the unpredictable, savage, interesting Dimitrios, followed by an unusual investigator, though come to think of it, in the detective novels that I have read recently, exotic characters appear to be the norm, such as in The Hollow Man http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-hollow-man-10-out-of-10.html and Friday the Rabbi Slept Late http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/friday-rabbi-slept-late-by-harry.html - in the latter, it is a Rabbi that finds the killer eventually

 

In The Mask of Dimitrios, the main character might be not the man from the title, but Charles Latimer,  the writer that starts looking for the Mask, once he meets with colonel Haki, presumably head of the Turkish Secret Police and also an amateur writer of bad crime stories, who tells the English visitor about the case of Dimitrios Makropoulos, whose body had been found floating in the sea, stabbed, and which the writer would like to see and after that happens, Latimer becomes interested in the story of the man that had been charged with murder, and whose accomplice testifies to the fact that he had been a vicious, cruel murderer and the first elements of the story spark an intense interest and therefore the author of fictional romans policier is now involved in the quest for details about the existence of a real life killer.

After searching for clues, the writer travels to Greece, where he finds some more about the refuge that Dimitrios took there and then he takes the train for Sofia, the next destination of the man who took different names, one of which was Talal, and on the train, the main character meets another traveler, who inexplicably knows his name, and who would show at the hotel where he would have looked through his luggage, devastating the room – just like a group of monkeys were turned loose Eric Ambler writes – and then asking why is Latimer interested in finding about Dimitrios and eventually offering an interesting alliance – in exchange for half a million francs (for they would split between them one million) Latimer and the one who says his name is Mr. Peters would cooperate and more information would be provided near Geneva, in Switzerland.

 

But before that, with the help of a journalist working for a French news outlet, the writer is looking for information in Sofia and finds that the killer from Turkey is involved in political schemes, offering his services for extreme parties – interestingly for us, Makropoulos aka Talal has been also close to Codreanu, the head of the Iron Guard, a fascist organization – helping to promote the cause of those who had wanted a conflict between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (and for that matter, between others as well) and rogue, terrorist elements pay for some aliens to shoot at the border, claiming to be part of the Yugoslav army, so that tensions would rise and thus orders to be placed for armament, companies making and banks financing the projects standing to benefit a lot from the contracts and employing thugs like Dimitrios to obtain them.

 

Makropoulos aka Talal is also part of a plot in Yugoslavia, and this Latimer and the readers learn from Grodek, a polish former master spy, now residing near Geneva, where he lives more or less in opulence, making the visitor wonder how dealing with secrets can pay so much…the former secret agent telling the story of a scheme he had planned, in which he enticed a low ranking clerk from the ministry of war, one named Bulic, who had been befriended by Grodek, who claimed to work for a company making binoculars, paying the functionaire for some fictional service and then introducing him to an excessively rich business man, played by Makropoulos under an assumed name, who takes the clerk gambling, after some period of accommodation and increasing amiability, where Bulic loses more than he can afford and thus he is subjected to pressure and blackmail and he is forced to produce the maps of the mines that the spies need.

However good and cunning Grodek is at the moment when he talks to the writer, he had made a mistake in dealing with the ruthless, vicious Dimitrios, for once they have the map, the latter threatens with a gun and wants to sell himself the precious information to the French, who had also been interested in valuable war secrets which had been paid for by the Italians, for whom Grodek had been working at that time…the Polish secret agent has to inform the Yugoslavs that they had lost the valuable intelligence, they arrest and send to prison for many years the guilty party, Bulic, and then the map becomes useless in the possession of the thieving Makropoulos, who has deceived his employer…

 

Dimitrios has also operated in Paris, where he first would get money from the ‘white slave trade’, where he would bring innocent Polish girls that he would then transport to Alexandria and other places, with help from Mr. Peters, at the time partner in a café, and then he would lead a drug cartel of sorts, in which Peters would be in charge with bringing heroin, cocaine and other drugs from Bulgaria, Turkey and other countries, while Makropoulos controlled the ring, which he would eventually sell to the police, once he would become a drug addict himself and would be ready to put a stop to this activity, for a different line of business, getting involved with the East Credit Bank that had been all along financing various illegal, actually terrorist activities, in Bulgaria and other places in the Balkans.

Mr. Peters is in fact a Danish man and his real name – if even that would be true – is Peterson and he has a quite interesting proposition for Charles Latimer, shocking him and the readers by saying that Dimitrios is not actually dead…the corpse that the writer had seen in Turkey belonged to one of the former accomplices of the gang that had distributed drugs, caught by the police after Dimitrios had informed the authorities and had all his former partners in crime locked up and furious, willing to take revenge on him as soon as they get out…

 

One of them followed in the leads and eventually found Makropoulos under a new name, not Talal, but C.K. and willing to submit to blackmail in order to secure his new, powerful position of a very rich man, respectable and in an important position…ready to pay up to the point where he might get rid of the annoying ghost from the past

 

'Not Le Carré, not Deighton, not Ludlum have surpassed the intelligence, authenticity or engrossing storytelling that established The Mask of Dimitrios as the best of its kind' The Times