Twenty-One Stories

These wide-ranging tales of menace, tragedy, and comedy offer ample proof that "e;in the short story, as well as the novel, Graham Greene is the master"e; (The New York Times). In "e;The End of the Party,"e; a game of hide-and-seek takes a terrifying turn in the dark. In "e;The Innocent,"e; a romantic gets a rude awakening when he finds a hidden keepsake from a childhood crush. A husband's sexual indiscretion is revealed in a most public and embarrassing way in "e;The Blue Film."e; A rebellious teen's flight from her petit bourgeois life includes a bad boy, a gun, and a plan in "e;A Drive in the Country."e; In "e;A Little Place off the Edgware Road,"e; a suicidal man's encounter with a stranger in a grubby cinema seals his fate. A young boy is ushered into a dark world when he discovers the secrets adults hide in "e;The Basement Room."e; And in "e;When Greek Meets Greek,"e; a clever con between two scoundrels carries an unexpected sting. In these and more than a dozen other stories, Greene confronts his usual themes of betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, faith and doubt, guilt and grief, and pity and pursuit. Praise for Graham Greene"e;The ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety."e; William Golding, Nobel Prize winning author of Lord of the Flies"e;Graham Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature."e; John le Carre, New York Times bestselling author of The Spy Who came in from the Cold"e;A masterly storyteller."e; Newsweek