Yannis Maris (1919-1979) is considered the “founding father” of the Hellenic detective story. Greek journalist and man of letters, he left to posterity an important police work, comprising in all more than sixty novels and short stories. Maris creates a universe and an investigator, Commissioner Bekas, typically Greek; even if at Bekas we can sense the influence of Simenon's Maigret. The detective genre cultivated by Maris - the short story "The Fourth Suspect" takes up its most characteristic themes - is essentially an investigative novel combined with adventure and sentimental history.