Our Man in Havana

£7.99

One of Graham Greene’s most popular books, “Our Man in Havana” has all the usual trademarks of a Greene novel (foreign locale, one man, a higher power and the perversion thereof), except instead of being a taught thriller, Greene’s wit shines through and proves to be as blackly comic as one could imagine.

Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman living in Havana, is short of money, at a time when being short of money was the worst possible time for Wormold: his daughter has reached an expensive age and Wormold’s impetuous need to deliver gets the better of him - so he accepts Hawthorne's offer of $300-plus a month and becomes Agent 59200/5, MI6's man in Havana. To keep the job, Wormold pretends to recruit sub-agents and sends fake stories.

Then the stories start coming disturbingly true...

In August 1941, Graham Greene joined the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service or MI6), and became fascinated with the story of Garcia, a double agent stationed in Lisbon who fed the Nazis disinformation throughout the war, inventing maps, armed forces movements and even operation guides for military reference. Garcia was the most likely inspiration for Wormold and knowing this somehow makes the book even more enjoyable, that one man's imagination could get the better of even the highest powers. “Our Man in Havana” offers a different flavour of Greene, and a Havana from decades past.