And no.100! (I did try to read 'Mr Sammler's Planet' by Saul Bellow after no.99, but gave up in the garden this morning. Too prosaic, and not really all that interesting).
This is perhaps the first I have consciously read that Greene calls an entertainment. I am not at all sure what he means by this; this is a typical Greene novel but lighter in tone than those that must be the opposite of entertainments (what are these called?).
The confidential agent is an unnamed emissary of one side of a small European country caught up in civil war, sent to England to buy coal which will win his side the war. However the other side has also sent an agent on the same quest.
Our man looses, but neutralises the threat and escapes back towards his homeland fearing death but at least with the girl.
Quite entertaining.
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