Finished Mo 5/20/13
My post on Good Reads-
A droll political thriller about James Wormold, an English vacuum salesmen in fifties Havana, who is drafted by the British Secret Service to help bolster his country's position in The Cold War. He obviously is privy to no secrets of any kind, but The Agency demands 'eyes and ears' as the evil Communists threaten global domination. Because Wormold needs money to support his sixteen year old daughter Milly's expensive lifestyle, he concocts a plan which would include an imaginary team of agents operating under his direction who would deliver blueprints of fake enemy installations. He would submit this entirely bogus information to The Service, and then charge them for his time and efforts. Apparently Graham Greene based the novel on a real incident that occurred in 1941 in which German agents operating in Portugal tried to implement this same scam. I don't know what happened in real-life agents, but in the novel, things rapidly fall to pieces, and take a turn for the sinister.
The book is in no way 'a laugh riot', and after reading some of the reviews, I thought it might be something like the 60's TV series, GET SMART. However, the humor in the book is more 'amusing' and 'whimsical' rather than downright 'hilarious', and this lends a more thought provoking aspect to the work. I fully enjoyed it.
The May selection for the Springfield Illinois Classic Book Club
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