Our Man in Havana
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
'Listen. You're a patriotic Englishman. Highly respected. Been here for years. A wide circle of influential friends. It is important that we have our man in Havana, Mr Wormwold.'
Jim Wormwold, an under-employed vacuum cleaner salesman living in 1950s Cuba, is struggling to pay for his teenage daughter's increasingly extravagant lifestyle. So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their 'man in Havana' he can't afford to say no. There's just one problem... he doesn't know anything! To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit non-existent sub-agents, concocting a series of intricate fictions. But Wormwold soon discovers that his stories are closer to the truth tan he could ever have imagined...
In Clive Francis' adaptation, Graham Greene's classic satirical novel becomes a wonderfully funny and fast-moving romp.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Actor Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park, Tristram Shandy) has himself a ball with Greene's comic suspense novel, its Cuban setting and panoply of international characters. He downplays the religious and political undertones of the book in favor of Greene's comedy of a vacuum-cleaner salesman turned secret agent. Greene's array of Germans, Brits and native Cubans allows Northam to trot out some of the choicest examples from his stable of voices, all cleverly done. The brief bits of salsa music that punctuate the breaks between chapters underscore Northam's jaunty reading. This is one classic novel meant to be enjoyed for entertainment, not self-improvement.
