by Graham Greene, 1978
I got this book from a Little Free Library somewhere in Fort Collins, I can’t remember which one. It was a mystery, set in England. Lots of drinking, interesting English characters, intriguing British urban and rural settings. A spy, Maurice Castle, lives in a flat with his Black South African wife, Sarah, and her son, Sam. He loves them dearly. He fell in love with her in South Africa, when he was a spy there during the Apartheid years. He’s an agent for MI6, and all of the sudden, his office is being investigated. They suspect a double agent. All signs point to his partner, and they end up killing him by poison. But unfortunately, Castle is the double-agent. Before they can figure that out, he escapes to Moscow. Sarah and Sam are supposed to join him, but in the end, it seems they will never be able to get out of England.
A good read, but disturbing, when he has to kill his dog – he can’t leave him alive, and it turns out, his bullet doesn’t kill the dog and it suffers until someone can break into the house and finish him off. Also, the ending, where he is stuck in Moscow, trying to adjust to living the rest of his life there in what sounds like relative poverty and solitude and ugliness – without Sarah and her son, Sam. He is holding on to hope that Sarah and Sam will be able to come to him, but it isn’t looking good.
I read most of it on the plane to Alaska, finished it 4 nights later, on September 19th, and left it at the Little Free Library located on the front porch of the Cooper Landing Library.
The Faith and Fiction Instagram account that I follow names a Graham Greene book, The End of the Affair, as one of his 5 favorite books (along with East of Eden, The Brothers Karamazov, Lonesome Dove, and Jayber Crow). I’ve read them all except The End of the Affair, so I have requested that from the Library.