Our Man In Havana

A vacuum cleaner salesman becomes a spy by accident and a liar by design. Jim Wormold lives quietly in pre-revolutionary Havana, selling vacuum cleaners to customers who can scarcely afford them. When a British intelligence officer offers him money to report on local activity, Wormold agrees. His daughter’s expenses demand it. Lacking real information, he invents it. Diagrams of military installations are drawn from appliance parts. Agents are imagined. Reports are filed. London believes every word. What begins as improvisation gathers consequence. As his fabrications circulate through intelligence channels, other parties begin to act on them. In a city already thick with tension, fiction proves capable of generating its own danger. Greene’s espionage novel balances satire with unease, exposing how easily authority can be deceived and how quickly deception can turn fatal. ‘British Intelligence being sent up something rotten’ Daily Telegraph

A vacuum cleaner salesman becomes a spy by accident and a liar by design. Jim Wormold lives quietly in pre-revolutionary Havana, selling vacuum cleaners to customers who can scarcely afford them. When a British intelligence officer offers him money to report on local activity, Wormold agrees. His daughter’s expenses demand it. Lacking real information, he invents it. Diagrams of military installations are drawn from appliance parts. Agents are imagined. Reports are filed. London believes every word. What begins as improvisation gathers consequence. As his fabrications circulate through intelligence channels, other parties begin to act on them. In a city already thick with tension, fiction proves capable of generating its own danger. Greene’s espionage novel balances satire with unease, exposing how easily authority can be deceived and how quickly deception can turn fatal. ‘British Intelligence being sent up something rotten’ Daily Telegraph

Life in pre-revolutionary Cuba is not easy and James Wormold, a failing vacuum cleaner salesman, is struggling to fund the increasingly lavish lifestyle of his manipulative sixteen year-old daughter, Milly. So when an enigmatic Englishman offers him an extra income in return for a little spying, he is sorely tempted . . . But when the fake reports he’s been sending to London start to come true, Havana suddenly becomes a very dangerous place indeed. Both a brilliant Cold War thriller and hilarious work of satire, Our Man in Havana is Graham Greene’s classic tale of an accidental spy, and a truly gripping read. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautifully bound gift editions of much loved classic titles.

Life in pre-revolutionary Cuba is not easy and James Wormold, a failing vacuum cleaner salesman, is struggling to fund the increasingly lavish lifestyle of his manipulative sixteen year-old daughter, Milly. So when an enigmatic Englishman offers him an extra income in return for a little spying, he is sorely tempted . . . But when the fake reports he’s been sending to London start to come true, Havana suddenly becomes a very dangerous place indeed. Both a brilliant Cold War thriller and hilarious work of satire, Our Man in Havana is Graham Greene’s classic tale of an accidental spy, and a truly gripping read. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautifully bound gift editions of much loved classic titles.

MI6's man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true... First published in 1959 against the backdrop of the Cold War, Our Man in Havana remains one of Graham Greene's most widely read novels. It is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government intelligence that still resonates today. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Christopher Hitchens. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.