Affairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legend and dream, fear, pity, and violence--this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Previously published in two volumes--Collected Short Stories and The Last Word and Other Stories--these forty-nine stories reveal Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each one confirms V. S. Pritchett's statement that Greene is "a master of storytelling."
Two BBC radio dramatisations based on Graham Greene stories. "The Third Man" is a thriller set in Vienna after World War II, and "The Fallen Idol" a psychological drama of personal relationships and a boy's tragic initiation into the world of adult emotions.
This book presents a very believable portrait of espionage during the cold war. No guns, no gadgets, no glamour. Just a drab monotonous life infused with constant paranoia and ending in tragedy. Quite a contrast to Our Man In Havana, although the main characters share much of the same insecurities (as most Greene characters seem to). The hero is a completely sympathetic character who loves his wife and child and hates the cruelty that the world has shown his wife and will surely show his child.
When career criminal Terry Greene is sentenced to life for a murder he didn't commit, his wife has two choices. To walk away from the criminal empire he'd built up, or to take it over. To become as big a gangster as her husband ever was. So far as Samantha "Sam" Greene was concerned, there is no choice. All the family's assets are tied up in the business, and family means more to her than anything else in the world. But being a gangboss doesn't come easily to Sam, not when other criminals are trying to take over what's left of her husband's empire and she's not even sure which of his friends and associates she can trust.
What would you steal if you couldn't get caught? It started as the perfect crime. Then it took a turn for the worse. Charlie and Oliver Caruso are brothers who work at Greene & Greene, a private bank so exclusive you need two million dollars just to be a client. But when the door of success slams in their faces, they're faced with an offer they can't refuse: three million dollars in an abandoned account. No one knows it exists, and even better, it doesn't belong to anyone.
