Publisher Description

A detective story where the detective is implicated in the crime and the hero is an enigma to the reader and to himself.For Arthur Rowe the charity fate was a trip back to childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the terror of the Blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and a murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake, and from that moment on he's a hunted man, the target of shadowy killers, on the run and struggling to remember and to find the truth.

Notes

First published in 1943, this is a detective story where the detective is implicated in the crime and the hero is an enigma to the reader and himself. Reissue.

Author Biography

Graham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.

Review

Opening a new book by Graham Greene is like settling into a gran turismo car. Nothing will go wrong * Sunday Times *
One of the finest writers of any language * Washington Post *
Greene was a force beyond his books -- Melvyn Bragg
The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists * The Times *
No serious writer of this century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than did Graham Greene * The Times *

Promotional

A detective story where the detective is implicated in the crime and the hero is an enigma to the reader and to himself

Kirkus UK Review

Greene classed The Ministry of Fear as one of his 'entertainments', a straightforward thriller. It is far from that, in fact it is one of his strangest, most unnerving novels. During the 1942 London blitz an apparently ordinary man (who is actually a murderer) wanders into a charity fete and, taking part in a traditional fund-raising competition, successfully guesses the weight of a home-made cake. This simple action leads him into a dark labyrinth of strange and inexplicable happenings - a meeting with two refugees, a fatal stabbing, an encounter in a deserted hotel, the opening of a suitcase, and then in the weirdest chapter of all, the central character... But that would be telling. The book has all the usual Greene ingredients: strange dreams and hazy, threatening memories, shadowy malign enemies, a romance which is a kind of betrayal, and at its centre the worst fear of all - the fear of a mind giving way, a personality distorted, a reality which is actually unreal. A thriller? Yes, and an excellent one. But also a very great deal more. (Kirkus UK)

Review Text

Opening a new book by Graham Greene is like settling into a gran turismo car. Nothing will go wrong

Review Quote

"Opening a new book by Graham Greene is like settling into a grand turismo car. Nothing will go wrong." Sunday Times

Promotional "Headline"

A detective story where the detective is implicated in the crime and the hero is an enigma to the reader and to himself.

Details