GatesyRead

Graham Greene’s 7 th novel, re-released in 2004 as a vintage classic, came into my hands via a book bucket in Katoomba and sat on my shelf for a few years before I got started. I read it in a few days. Compulsive reading. The question is – what’s so appealing to the reader about a ruthless, 17-year old killer? Why has it been adapted into different forms (including a 1944 play, a 1997 radio drama, a failed 2004 musical, and two films – 1947 and 2010)? I think the answer is, in part, the spectacle of the slow-motion-train crash. The opening sentence of the novel is a brilliant example of foretelling: ‘Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him’ (p.3). He doesn’t make it out of Chapter 1, this journalist. Chapter 2 then introduces ‘the Boy’ (later known as “Pinkie”) whom we soon figure is Hale’s killer. The story is not a traditional crime story, however -- the primary crime happens so quickly and we know the murderer. What becomes fascinat