An exceptional suspense story is always a matter of how it's told, of the fine art of unravelling—if that word doesn't impute too haphazard a character to a process that is very precisely controlled; and no one in the business today knows and practices its secrets with more finesse than Helen MacInnes.

The scene of ["Decision at Delphi"] is Greece, and the goings-on have to do with an extreme anarchist minority, whose leader, an ex-guerrilla fighter, known only as Odysseus, is plotting an assassination which could lead to political chaos. But a former comrade, Stephanos Kladas, has photographic evidence which will identify him, and is smuggling it into Greece in the luggage of Kenneth Strang, an unsuspecting young American assigned to sketch Greek ruins for a travel magazine. When Stephanos disappears, Kenneth becomes involved, and it is then that Miss MacInnes' technique takes over, teasing and tautening...