The book starts as a regular whodunit except we already know most of the pieces including who the murderer is what is interesting is the detail has been deliberately left out. By chance, the soon to become detective, or woman spawned, Ida Arnold, is the other chess piece in this novel. Retribution was in the air, and the scene setting of the first chapter being the linkage from the past novel to the present and the introduction of Fred Hale, soon to be deceased, his murderer introduced as The Boy, later to be known as Pinkie Brown, leader of his deceased boss’s motley crew of thugs. “Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to murder him.”

The first line of Brighton Rock begins with: It is quite apt that in the month of promising to undertake this review, Graham Greene himself a member of the secret intelligence service whom worked under the infamous Kim Philby is also noted for aspiring John Le Carre, possibly even as his progeny, the author we are currently reading in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.įirst published in 1938, Brighton Rock, and Greene’s ninth novel, follows on from his eighth novel, A Gun for Sale, whereby a leading gang member in Brighton is murdered, with his throat slit by a switchblade, incidentally, pictured on the cover of Brighton Rock but also to play a part in the novel.

Brighton rock novel