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sixdaysago's review against another edition
4.0
Despite a perhaps rushed ending, this thriller was exceptionally entertaining and amusing.
chalicotherex's review against another edition
2.0
Read this because I heard the protagonist is supposed to be a professor concerned with The Song of Roland, one of my favourites. There's not much of it in the book, though. There's an interesting premise and I like that the spy is permanently broke and is always looked down on by the snooty British as a foreigner. Makes for a contrast to the sort of thing you expect from a spy novel after Ian Fleming. On the other hand, the action is boring and none of the secondary characters feel real enough for you to care about them.
strong_extraordinary_dreams's review against another edition
3.0
A perfectly acceptable novel with a plot, a few coincidences and a twist or two.
Not as intense as one would expect from Mr Greene and giventhe happy ending and maybe a slight softening around the waist, it's obvious why he initally published it under a pseudonym.
Happy to have read it, but The Confidential Agent changed neither my nor anyone's lives, I think.
Not as intense as one would expect from Mr Greene and given
Happy to have read it, but The Confidential Agent changed neither my nor anyone's lives, I think.
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
Unabridged
Duration: 7h 30 min
Read by Patrick Tull
From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
Graham Greene's masterful tale of suspense. When Edgar Dominguez is sent to England on a mission to arrange a supply of coal for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War it seems a straightforward business negotiation; but no sooner does he set foot on English soil than he finds himself a hunted man, with seemingly no one he can trust and implicated in murder.
Greene wrote The Confidential Agent at the same time as his masterpiece The Power and The Glory. It was written in six weeks in 1938 as England stood on the brink of war, and the story is suffused with paranoia, distrust and urgency. He wrote it as an 'Entertainment' with the hope of getting a film made of the book and therefore providing much needed income for his family, in which he succeeded. A tense thriller where the hero must avoid trap after trap that is set for him haunted by the memory of his dead wife and his own time in prison awaiting execution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07x1rct
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037610/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Duration: 7h 30 min
Read by Patrick Tull
From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
Graham Greene's masterful tale of suspense. When Edgar Dominguez is sent to England on a mission to arrange a supply of coal for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War it seems a straightforward business negotiation; but no sooner does he set foot on English soil than he finds himself a hunted man, with seemingly no one he can trust and implicated in murder.
Greene wrote The Confidential Agent at the same time as his masterpiece The Power and The Glory. It was written in six weeks in 1938 as England stood on the brink of war, and the story is suffused with paranoia, distrust and urgency. He wrote it as an 'Entertainment' with the hope of getting a film made of the book and therefore providing much needed income for his family, in which he succeeded. A tense thriller where the hero must avoid trap after trap that is set for him haunted by the memory of his dead wife and his own time in prison awaiting execution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07x1rct
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037610/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
brynhammond's review against another edition
5.0
I seemed to be keenest on those he subtitled 'An Entertainment'. The inside of this one explains, "in order to distinguish it from more serious work." Hey. I thought his entertainments were great.
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