His most vivid emotion was venom

Graham Greene's early thriller is full of such language: evil is on the prowl; good is in hiding, hard to find; love is tainted, full of suspicion. Right from the start the tone of this book is cold-blooded: "Murder didn't mean much to Raven. It was just a new job." Greene seems to be telling us we are all imperfect, compromised beings facing tough choices in life and lacking any sound moral direction, we wander aimlessly like travellers in one of those old London fogs, constantly threatened by wrongdoers and external disasters. Those who offer us help are all themselves flawed and may drag us deeper into the mire. The book is firmly rooted in the 1930s, pervaded by the threat of war and poverty. The title 'A Gun for Sale', establishes the two themes, killing and corruption, that are at the heart of everything in the story. I read this book while on holiday in the US, where there is no escape form lurid headlines on both these themes everywhere in the media. Greene, typically, doesn't give us a happy ending to send us away feeling reassured and allowing us to sleep soundly in our beds; world war is about to start. The book recalls a lost era, but the themes sadly remain with us, not of impending war but the uncertainty of international discord, trade wars, climate change, etc. If want to escape into a world of fairytales read Harry Potter; if you prefer to be down in the mud of the real world, read Graham Greene.