Haki believes Latimer would be interested in the career of the notorious criminal Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue.

Latimer, who is indeed intrigued, begins an independent investigation of the details of Dimitrios' criminal career, and learns some information about it which is more dangerous than he had anticipated.

[5] On the crime fiction website Crime Reads, the editor and columnist Neil Nyren said, "I’ve worked with many writers of international suspense, and whenever I’ve wanted to recommend a book to any of them that captures the genre as well as any book possibly can—this is the one I send them to.

"[6] The book has been adapted as a radio play[citation needed] and made into a feature-length film, The Mask of Dimitrios.

In the 1957 novel From Russia, with Love, James Bond reads The Mask of Dimitrios while on a flight to Istanbul.