Point of View

The novel is from a third person limited omniscient perspective. Throughout most of the story, the narrator is objective, telling the story from the point of view of Latimer. The tale of Dimitrios unfolds as Latimer finds out more about the criminal. As in many detective stories, the reader is able to follow along as the detective slowly uncovers the truth of the mystery. The detective is a surrogate, and the reader gets the thrill of slowly uncovering secrets.

The novel changes point of view at times to tell events in an epistolary manner or to narrate historic events from an objective third person viewpoint. The events of the Turkish holocaust of Armenians in Smyrna is told objectively, breaking out of Latimer's point of view to detail events that Latimer did not witness. The spy Grodek tells a lengthy tale to Latimer, and Latimer relates this...