A Coffin for Dimitrios (The Mask of Dimitrios)
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season304 pages, about 6 hours: about the length of a typical book on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbCharles Latimer, a mystery novelist on holiday in Istanbul, meets Colonel Haki and views Dimitrios’s body in a morgue.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesA blog review compares it to Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male, on the shelf at 192 pages, as another thriller crossing Europe before the war.
The case for it
on the characters
“There are no characters here who seem stupid for the sake of the plot.”
a book blog on the character sketches
“Character descriptions are fantastically crafted, with paragraphs being so enjoyable”
a book blog on Mr Peters
“one of the great characters of spy/crime fiction”
a book blog on the opening chapters
“I enjoyed the setup in the first few chapters”
a book blog
The case against
on Latimer’s characterization
“Latimer is a blank slate”
a book blog on the pacing
“the pacing flags somewhat in the middle”
a book blog on the second half
“a really long, dry lecture class”
a book blog on plot holes
“small plotholes (or possibly intentional red herrings?)”
a book blog
