Synopses & Reviews
A gang war is raging through the dark, seedy underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, fighting for leadership, is only seventeen yet he has already proved his ruthlessness in the brutal killing of Hale, a journalist. Untouched by human feeling, Pinkie is isolated from the rest of the world, a figure of pure evil. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge Hale's death. Graham Greene's gripping thriller exposes a world of loneliness, pain and fear, of life lived on 'the dangerous edge of things'. It was brilliantly re-enacted on film, with Graham Greene writing the screenplay and Richard Attenborough in a tour de force role as Pinkie.
Review
"He had...wit and grace and character and story, and a transcendant universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature." John Le Carré, The Guardian
Review
"In a class by himself...the ultimate chronicler of 20th-century mans consciousness and anxiety." William Golding, The Independent (U.K.)
Synopsis
A masterpiece of psycho-realism, this fascinating study of evil, sin, and the "appalling strangeness of the mercy of God" withholds easy judgement as a narrative takes us through the moral question of what is simultaneously fascinating and repellent.
About the Author
Graham Greene (1904-1991) worked as a journalist and critic, and was later employed by the foreign office. His many books include The Power and the Glory, The Third Man, Our Man in Havana, The Quiet American, and Travels with My Aunt. He is the subject of an acclaimed three-volume biography by Norman Sherry.