Bleakly brilliant

Greene is a proper writer. This is one of his bleakest but it is a marvel of fiction writing. Read just right too. 100% recommended.

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2 people found this helpful

Great storytelling.

I enjoyed the story and the characters, which Samuel West got just right. I will listen to another Graham Greene novel after this.

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1 person found this helpful

A "just one more chapter" book.

This is one of those books that's been on my 'to read' list for years. I'm so glad I finally got around to it.

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Lost on me

Pinky is deplorable. I didn’t get many pleasures by spending time with that character. The overall meaning was lost on me. Much preferred The End of the Affair because I understood the theoretical questions Greene was grappling with. I didn’t find this as clear. Maybe that’s the point…

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Breathtaking performance of this gripping novel

I've long been a fan of Graham Greene but had held off reading this book for years, because it was "too famous" and - I thought - would be spoiled by the film adaptations. And the story never really seemed like a Greene novel to me. I couldn't have been more wrong; this is Greene at his finest. Gripping, poignant, sinister, touching, comic, chilling - only Greene can deliver such a hard-as-nails story with such a tender economy of phrase.

Samuel West is utterly masterful - his voices are eerily evocative whist never straying into caricature, and his sombre tone is perfect for delivering those Greene gut-wrenching sentences. There were a couple of time towards the end where I literally gasped out loud and held my hands up to my face - punches packed with West's subtle and dark delivery. West clearly 'gets' Greene, and like any brilliant narrator, he delivers the story as if from the author himself.

The book left me quite unsettled for days, but in a brilliant and admiring way. The last line... I felt the floor give way beneath me...

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42 people found this helpful

Truly excellent

I bought this book as it was recommended as one of the top 20 audiobooks of all time by The Telegraph. I can certainly see why it made the list. The story itself is great, and alone would make the book a worthy read. But it was the writing that really blew me away here. It was so evocative and captivating. I feel compelled to physically read the book as well now.

Lastly, Samuel West's narration was just fantastic. I will certainly look out for him in the future.

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16 people found this helpful

Brilliant start, but...

The first line of the book is bettered only by that of Orwell in Nineteen-Eighty-Four. My enjoyment continued for the first few chapters. The narration is the highest quality, one of the best I've heard.

But three aspects grated on me:

1. I know the book was written a long time ago, but a slight 17 year-old kid running a firm didn't work for me. Two or three years older would have made all the difference.

2. Greene's analogies and descriptions are excellent, but I found some of them were included just for the sake of it and didn't add to the scene or story. This negatively impacts the tension.

3. A suicide plot seems to come from nowhere.

I'd like to say more but would have to include spoilers.

It's OK, but based on the opening scenes, it could have been so much better,

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Nicely read, plot is a bit bleak!

The story is a bit irritating and the language is too pretentious... almost as though it was written to be studied by an A Level class with clunky metaphors and other imagery. Can't fault the delivery though.

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Not Greene's best, but still some magic in there

I was happy when it was over 😂. The story is bleak and on the whole the characters are pernicious and spiky. But Greene's magic is still in there, with the devil very much being in the detail as usual.
Samuel West's narration is faultless and lifts everything.

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His best.

A of storytelling with great characterisation, a fascinating insight into the mind of the dispossessed and uncaring gangster

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