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Graham Greene Message Board 1/1/2012
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Greene has written!

Author Greene's Book Reviews

A Gun for Hire
A boy with a cleft lip, raised in a loveless orphanage after his mother killed herself, grew up to become a hard-hearted killer. When Raven got out of the wicked orphanage where he had been continually mistreated, his very low opinion of himself forced him to take a job with a criminal who very soon ordered him to kill someone. Raven did the job and was paid 200 pounds for it, but when he went to spend some of the money, he discovered it was counterfeit...
Brighton Rock (Thriller/Action)
Ida Arnold, a warm-hearted, buxom woman meets 'Hale' an unknown but distinctive stranger who leaves a lasting impression upon her. Following his odd 'disappearing act' - she later hears of his seemingly 'natural' death. However, convinced that something is amiss; she is determined to seek the truth and seek justice. She learns about the mob responsible for the murder; under the new leadership of an adolescent - 'Pinkie'. A ruthless youth who will stop...
Brighton Rock (Literature)
Brighton Rock is one of the darkest books I've read and certainly one of the darkest that Graham Greene has written. His examination of a relationship between a petty criminal (extremely violent for all his pettiness) and the young girl who loves him....
Our Man In Havana
Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene is a satirical tale of espionage and intrigue. Jim Wormold is selling vacuum cleaners in Cuba before being enlisted by a fellow Brit named Hawthorne to spy on Cuba for England! Wormold is out of his league in the world of cloak and dagger missions, sensitive information gathering, and covert operations. He is a middle-aged father of a 17 year-old beauty named Milly, his wife ran off with an American some years before...

Greene booklist

The Confidential Agent
During the Spanish Civil War, D a middle aged, former prisoner of war who recently lost his wife in the conflict arrives by boat in Dover, England having business to conduct with Lord Benditch. By chance he encounters Benditch's daughter, Rose Cullen, at the customs inspection. She offers him a ride to London but they are forced to stop for dinner while having a tire replaced. At the restaurant D. spots a rival agent, L, who is employed by the reb...
The End of the Affair (Romance)
In this book, Graham Greene goes a lot further toward shoqing the power of grace in a person's life than he went in The Power and the Glory. Here, he has the grace exercising such authority that it dictates decisions and even takes life if the sin is too strong to resist. There is powerful biblical and historical ground to make such a claim and in this particular case, Greene has made it strongly....
The End of the Affair (Literature)
Maurice Bendrix is a middle-aged bachelor who meets Sarah and Henry Miles while he is beginning to write a new book. He decides to find out what Henry's life is like because his main character, like Henry, is a civil servant in the British government. He quickly begins an affair with Sarah, which lasts for several years. One day, they survive a bombing during WWII, and when she discovers that he is alive, she tells him that the affair is over. Two ye...
The Heart of the Matter
Religious convictions and love and pity for 2 women force main character to choose not romance but suicide in an attempt to free both women from sadness....
The Honorary Consul
Eduardo Plaar, a young doctor of English heritage, moves from Buenos Aires to a small port town near the border with Paraguay. He is summoned to the house of Britain's Honorary Consul, Charles Fortnum, to tend to his sickly wife, whom he engages in an affair, resulting in her falling pregnant with his child. In the midst of this situation, a group of Plaar's childhood friends appear to inform him that his father, presumed dead, is still alive in a Par...
The Man Within
A hesitant smuggler (Francis Andrews) informs on his colleagues, precipitating a violent confrontation that leaves a customs official dead and Francis fleeing for safety. He comes across a remote country cottage inhabited by a widow (Elizabeth) with whom he strikes up a caring relationship, protecting her from gossiping villagers. After a brief encounter with the chief smuggler (Carlyon), Francis is persuaded by Elizabeth to testify against his fellow...

Graham Greene list of books

The Ministry of Fear
Arthur Rowe wins a cake as a prize for guessing its correct weight at a small fair while the wartime Blitz of Britain is happening during World War II. Assisting him is a clairvoyant woman named Mrs. Bellairs, but a mistake was made and he was not supposed to get the prize. He is immediately pursued by people out to retrieve the cake and any information it may contain. A bomb dropped from an enemy aircraft goes off foiling the attack before the cake i...
The Power and the Glory
An alcoholic priest, whose name the reader never learns, roams the countryside of 1930s Mexico, ministering to the poor despite the fact that the government has outlawed Catholicism. The priest is a shell of his former self, racked by guilt over his many sins. He performs baptisms, communions, and last rites for the impoverished people of a small town in the state of Tabasco, who hold on to their faith despite the religious ban. The priest moves on to...
The Quiet American
The Quiet American by Graham Greene is a bleak and sorrowful novel set in French colonial Vietnam in the 1950's. On assignment in Vietnam, Fowler is a British foreign correspondent reporting the progress of the fighting between several warring factions trying to take control of the government and throw out the French. Fowler's life is a mess as he is a middle aged, opium addicted atheist in love with a young and beautiful Vietnamese orphan girl named P...
The Tenth Man
Louis Chavel, a wealthy lawyer, is imprisoned in France during the German occupation when it is announced that his captors will shoot one prisoner in ten. Of the thirty captives three will draw a marked slip of paper and will be killed. He a so-called tenth man and does not take the news well. While the other 29 men of lower stature handled the inevitability of their fate with calm resolve, Chavel rants about the injustice of the situation offering al...
This Gun For Hire
James Raven is a sociopath and a killer, born disfigured with a harelip. He is also cold and without remorse. His father was hanged, his mother committed suicide, and so he was institutionalized. Now a professional assassin, his assignment is to kill the minister of war bringing about a chain reaction of countries preparing for armed conflict. Other than having to kill the minister's secretary, the hit goes fairly smoothly until he learns he was set u...
Travels with my Aunt
Henry Pulling is a retired bank manager, he lives in London, he meets for the second time in his life his Aunt Augusta, during his motherīs funeral. They get to know and they started to be friends. She tells him that the dead woman (Aunt augustaīs sister)is not his real mother. He likes very much growing his dahlias, it is his only hobbie. He starts knowing his step aunt, and they decide to travel all along Europe and to some parts of Asia and America. ...