With a new introduction by Robert Macfarlane
Raven is an ugly man dedicated to ugly deeds. His cold-blooded killing of the Minister of War is an act of violence with chilling repercussions, not just for Raven himself but for the nation as a whole. The money he receives in payment for the murder is made up of stolen notes. When the first of these is traced, Raven is a man on the run. As he tracks down the agent who has been double-crossing him and attempts to elude the police, he becomes both hunter and hunted: an unwitting weapon of a strange kind of social justice.
About the Author
Graham Greene was born in 1904. On coming down from Balliol College, Oxford,
he worked for four years as sub-editor on The Times. He established his
reputation with his fourth novel, Stamboul Train. In 1935 he made a journey
across Liberia, described in Journey Without Maps, and on his return was
appointed film critic of the Spectator. In 1926 he had been received into the
Roman Catholic Church and visited Mexico in 1938 to report on the religious
persecution there.
As a result he wrote The Lawless Roads and, later, his famous novel The Power
and the Glory. Brighton Rock was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became
literary editor of the Spectator. The next year he undertook work for the
Foreign Office and was stationed in Sierra Leone from 1941 to 1943. This later
produced the novel The Heart of the Matter, set in West Africa. As well as his
many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four
travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography - A Sort of Life, Ways
of Escape and A World of My Own (published posthumously) - two of biography
and four books for children. He also contributed hundreds of essays, and film
and book reviews, some of which appear in the collections Reflections and
Mornings in the Dark. Many of his novels and short stories have been filmed
and The Third Man was written as a film treatment. Graham Greene was a member
of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.
Industry Reviews
"Graham Greene taught us to understand the social and economic cripples in our midst. He taught us to look at each other with new eyes. I don't suppose his influence will ever disappear" -- Auberon Waugh * Independent * "A masterly storyteller... An enormously popular writer who was also one of the most significant novelists of his time" * Newsweek * "Graham Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature" -- John Le Carre
