Book Description

A quartet of compelling novels from the British author hailed as “one of the most significant novelists of his time” (Newsweek). From a crisis of faith to a leap of faith, from betrayal and corruption to the hope of redemption, the gripping novels in this collection reveal “a storyteller of genius” (Evelyn Waugh). A Burnt-Out Case: Querry, a world-renowned architect noted for his magnificent churches, is suffering a crisis of faith that’s led him to what seems like the end of the world: a colony of lepers in the Congo. Here, under the guidance of Doctor Colin, a fellow atheist, Querry’s consideration of the sick could be something close to a cure for his spiritual malaise. So too, it first seems, could a local plantation owner’s lonely and abused wife—Querry’s unlikely confessor. But when Querry reluctantly agrees to build a hospital and his good intentions brand him a modern-day saint, all the intrusive and dangerous piety of civilization returns. And this time it could be inescapable. “[Greene’s] greatest novel.” —Time The Captain and the Enemy: On his twelfth birthday, Victor Baxter is spirited away from boarding school by a stranger known only as the Captain, who claims to have won him from the boy’s diabolical father. Settling into a new life in a dire London flat, Victor becomes the willing ward of his mysterious abductor and the tender and childless Liza. He quickly adapts to the only family he’s ever known, despite the Captain’s long disappearances on suspicious “adventures” and a guarded curiosity about this peculiar but devoted couple. Then one day, in pursuit of answers, and perhaps an adventure of his own, Victor responds to an entreaty from the Captain to come to Panama. What follows in this world of dangerous imposture is absolutely revelatory. “[A] tremendous yarn.” —Paul Theroux The Comedians: Haiti, under the rule of Papa Doc and his menacing paramilitary, the Tontons Macoute, has long been abandoned by tourists. Now it is home to corrupt capitalists, foreign ambassadors and their lonely wives—and a small group of enterprising strangers arriving in Port-au-Prince: a well-meaning American couple claiming to bring vegetarianism to the natives; a former fighter in World War II Burma and current confidence man; and an English hotelier returning home to the Trianon, an unsalable shell of an establishment on the hills above the capital. Each is embroiled in a charade. But when they’re unsuspectingly bound together in this nightmare republic of squalid poverty, torrid love affairs, and impending violence, their masks will be stripped away. “The most interesting novel of [Greene’s] career.” —The Nation The Man Within: In Greene’s debut novel, Francis Andrews is a reluctant smuggler living in the shadow of his brutish father’s legacy. To exorcise the ghosts of the man he loathes, Andrews betrays his colleagues to authorities and takes flight across the downs. He stumbles upon the isolated cottage of a beguiling stranger named Elizabeth, an empathetic young woman who is just as lonely, every bit the outsider as he, and reconciling a troubling past of her own. On the run from those he exposed, Andrews believes he’s found refuge and salvation. But when Elizabeth encourages him to return to the courts of Lewes and give evidence against his accomplices, the treacherous and deadly repercussions may be beyond their control. “Strikingly original . . . a perfect adventure.” —The Nation