Where to start with Graham Greene’s books

Graham Greene worked in espionage for MI6, travelled the world and somehow found time to
become one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With 24 novels, short stories, poetry and two
autobiographies under his belt, here's our list of his best books to start with.

02 OCTOBER 2019

Brighton Rock (1938)

Heaven was a word: hell was something he could

trust.

One of Greene’s most famous and beloved novels

tells the tale of a gang war that is raging through
the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-
old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man.
Believing he can escape retribution, he is
unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing,
self-appointed sleuth, Ida Arnold, who has made
it her job to foil him.

A page-turner and a well-crafted thriller which

combines fast-paced action with superior writing
to create a novel that feels timeless, even though
it was published more than 80 years ago.
Dr Fischer of Geneva (1980)

I think that I used to detest Doctor Fischer more than

any other man I have known just as I loved his
daughter more than any other woman.

Greene opens up a powerful vision of the limitless

greed of the rich in this pitch-black satire. Doctor
Fischer despises the human race. A millionaire
with a taste for sadism, he spends his time and
money planning notorious parties, entertainments
designed to expose the shallowness and greed of
the Toads, his craven hangers-on.

Alfred Jones is now married to Dr. Fischer’s

daughter, and soon receives an invitation to one of
the infamous parties, but Jones is very unlike the
Toads – he is neither wealthy nor greedy, and he
will not accept Fischer’s humiliations.

Endlessly compelling and concise, this short novel

has more to say on love and loss as well as the nature of greed and power than books
three times its size.

Our Man In Havana (1959)

It was a city to visit, not a city to live in, but it was the city
where Wormold had first fallen in love and he was held to
it as though to the scene of a disaster.

One of Greene’s more light-hearted novels, which were

classed by the author as ‘entertainments’, and is
certainly one of his funniest. Wormold is a vacuum
cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent
daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him,
so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra
income he’s tempted. In return all he has to do is carry
out a little espionage and file a few reports.

Soon, Wormold begins to fabricate reports and to hire

imaginary agents to support him in his growing spy
network, but when his fake reports start coming true,
things suddenly get more complicated and Havana
becomes a threatening place.
As well as being a comic gem, Our Man in Havana is an atmospheric espionage thriller,
and a political satire that still resonates to this day.
The Quiet American (1955)

I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to
be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a
certain hour of the night, and the promise of rest.

Perhaps the most controversial novel of his career, this

is Greene's exploration of love, innocence, and morality
in Vietnam. Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s Indo-
China comes CIA agent Alden Pyle, the eponymous
’Quiet American’ who is young, idealistic and sent to
promote democracy through a mysterious ’Third Force‘.

As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his

friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it
hard to stand aside and watch. But Fowler‘s motives for
intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself,
for Pyle has stolen Fowler’s beautiful Vietnamese lover.
Greene deftly offers an astute glimpse of American
foreign policy and a fascinating love triangle, ingenious in its pace and tone. The Quiet
American remains a terrifying and prescient portrait of innocence at large.

The End of the Affair (1951)

I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with

my tongue; one can‘t love and do nothing.

A searing, heartrending novel about love, hatred and

obsession; a love affair between Maurice Bendrix and
Sarah Miles, flourishing in the turbulent times of the
London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without
explanation breaks it off.

After a chance meeting rekindles his love and

jealousy two years later, Bendrix hires a private
detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her
turns into an obsession.

One of Greene‘s so-called Catholic novels, it is a

beautifully crafted work which never loses touch with
the realities of this world – indeed it is so realistic, so
full of pain and rage, that you almost want to turn away from the page. You cannot read
this and not be moved.
The Power and the Glory (1940)

Hate was just a failure of imagination.

Named one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century

by Time magazine, this novel is considered by many to be
Greene’s finest work.

During a vicious persecution of the clergy in 1930’s

Mexico, a worldly priest, the ’whisky priest’, is on the
run, fleeing not just an unshakable police lieutenant but
also his own wavering morals. With the police closing in,
his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting
fewer.

As he scraps his way towards salvation, haunted by an

affair from his past, the nameless ‘whiskey priest’ is pulled
between the bottle and the Bible, but compassion and
humanity force him along the road to his destiny, reluctant
to abandon those who need him, and those he cares for.

Timeless and unforgettable, The Power and the Glory shows the best and worst of dogma
as well as the cowardice and bravery of human beings by a master storyteller at the
height of his powers.