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A review by jasonfurman
Brighton Rock: (penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Graham Greene
4.0
When I was around twenty I became a big Graham Greene fan and read most of his major novels but somehow missed this one. It has the menace and shadows of some of his entertainments (like [b:The Tenth Man|3707|The Tenth Man|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1350302910l/3707._SY75_.jpg|2260515]) combined with come of the Catholic sin and guilt of many of his supposedly more literary novels (e.g., [b:The Power and the Glory|3690|The Power and the Glory|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388210459l/3690._SY75_.jpg|1036817]). It is also deeply routed in a place, in this case Brighton, centering around the underworld of gambling that surrounds the horse raising. The main character, Pinkie, is a seventeen year-old psychopath recently ascended to gang leader. He orchestrates a murder and then spends the rest of the book getting deeper and deeper into crime and betrayal in an attempt to not get caught for the murder he committed.
The other major character is a woman, Ida, who is trying to unravel and prove Pinkie's evil doing even after the police have given up on the case. Ida is an unlikely hero, a woman who spends all her time in brief romances with men--many of them married--but she gets stuck on the case when a man uses her to avoid Pinkie but then disappears and turns up dead. This leaves her with a residual feeling of responsibility commitment and she gets drawn in deeper and deeper in a mirror image of Pinkie's.
The novel is suspenseful, psychological, and dark--and enjoyable.
The other major character is a woman, Ida, who is trying to unravel and prove Pinkie's evil doing even after the police have given up on the case. Ida is an unlikely hero, a woman who spends all her time in brief romances with men--many of them married--but she gets stuck on the case when a man uses her to avoid Pinkie but then disappears and turns up dead. This leaves her with a residual feeling of responsibility commitment and she gets drawn in deeper and deeper in a mirror image of Pinkie's.
The novel is suspenseful, psychological, and dark--and enjoyable.