Eric Ambler (1909-98) was born in London to parents who were part-time entertainers. He studied engineering but left college without taking a degree and became a copywriter in the advertising industry. Between 1937 and 1940, he published his great anti-fascist spy thrillers: Uncommon Danger, Epitaph for a Spy, Cause for Alarm, The Mask of Dimitrios, and Journey into Fear. In 1940, he joined the Royal Artillery and was later transferred to the army film unit. After the war he worked as a screenwriter in England and Hollywood and married his second wife, a leading Hollywood producer. Ambler's post-war novels include Passage of Arms, The Light of Day and A Kind of Anger, and his profound influence on the genre has been acknowledged by writers including Graham Greene, Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Mark Mazower is Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University, where he directs the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. His previous books include Inside Hitler's Greece, Dark Continent, The Balkans and Salonica, City of Ghosts. His most recent book, The Greek Revolution, won the Duff Cooper Prize.

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.