The Confidential Agent: An Entertainment +

by Graham Greene (Author)

Review

In a class by himself… the ultimate chronicler of 20th-century man’s consciousness and anxiety.

William Golding –

Book Description

“The confidential agent of the book’s title, D has been sent by his government to negotiate a supply of coal from a group of British businessmen. Without this coal, D’s side is doomed to almost inevitable defeat.

When D., an agent from an unnamed country, presumably Spain, arrives in England on a mission to buy coal for his side in a civil war, he discovers that L., an agent for the other side, is also there for the same reason. Coal is now as valuable in his country as gold, and whoever obtains it is likely to win the war.”

In a small continental country civil war is raging. Once a lecturer in medieval French, now a confidential agent, D is a scarred stranger in a seemingly casual England, sent on a mission to buy coal. Initially, this seems to be a matter of straightforward negotiation, but soon, implicated in murder, accused of possessing false documents and theft, held responsible for the death of a young woman, D becomes a hunted man. –

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