 As a writer, perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with the exploration of wider spiritual and political matters, often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs.Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence, although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing.