Brighton Rock - Graham Greene

Author: Graham Greene Genre: Fiction Date of Publish: Number of Pages: RRP: What’s is all about? *********************** Pinkie Brown, the anti hero protaganist of the book is a teenager and rising gangster after betraying the former gang leader in a foolish bid to gain control. Some have said he was a sociopath. Fred Hale, in Brighton working for a newspaper competition is Pinkie’s next target and he knows it. That day, on the piers, Fred is murdered and only one person, Ida Arnold can ensure justice is served when the death is ruled as a suicide. What follows is the story of Pinkie’s attempts to cover his tracks and ...  Read the complete review

Graham Greene is one of our nations most treasured authors, if you are a reader of books, you cannot have failed to read at least one. I myself have been through about eight of his novels, but am always drawn back to Brighton Rock, as was the case, when looking at my pile of new novels to read, nothing really jumped out, so I turned to Brighton Rock. This is the book that started my love affair with literature, as a 15 year old boy I was more interested in girls and football than books, but I was forced to read this as a GCSE set text and it filled my imagination and sparked my dormant brain into thought. Brighton Rock is early Greene, written in 1938, with ...  Read the complete review

My favourite of Graham Greene's earlier books, this was written and set in the 1930s. Brighton is popular with crowds of day-trippers from London, but the book also delves into the seamy underworld of the town. The central characters are the teenage gangster Pinkie, waitress Rose and an ageing good-time girl Ida. Pinkie's gang, like its rivals, profits from the visitors, running betting scams. After his superior is killed, the unstable Pinkie leads into a frightening sequence of violence, determined to prevent anyone giving evidence against him. This in turn draws him to Rose, while involving Ida's suspicions. The setting is ...  Read the complete review

A book full of atmosphere, which recreates the criminal underworld of Brighton in the 1950s: the front and Palace Pier, the station and Seven Dials, the race track, Rottingdean, and the Downs – and the cheap and nasty terraced housing where Pinky lives. This book examines the naiveté of love, ambition and 'the sickness that attends it' to rise above the slums, and above all the bullying mentality of the petty criminal. Sharply written, and full of psychological insight, Greene spins a tight story as the web closes in first on the innocent and then on the loving. But as with so much of Greene’s writing, this is not only a story of crime and ...  Read the complete review