This paper deals with the immediate critical reception of Arthur Koestler's Thieves in the Night. Through a comparative analysis of reviews published at the time of the book's appearance, it aims to show that the said reception was in many cases neither fair, nor focused on the book's literary values. More specifically, in comparing the novel's American reception to its British counterpart, and focusing on the various fallacies and biases appearing predominantly in the latter one, it aims to draw attention to the fact that the present-day obscurity of this commercially successful novel might be, at least partially, due to the often angered and biased reaction to the book's topic and its explicit criticism of British foreign policy, rather than a result of the book's qualities themselves.