The Captain and the Enemy »

Known for his espionage thrillers set in exotic locales, Graham Greene is the writer who launched a thousand travel journalists. But although Greene produced some unabashedly commercial works -- he called them "entertainments," to distinguish them from his novels -- even his escapist fiction is rooted in the gritty realities he encountered around the globe.

Victor Baxter is a young boy when a secretive stranger known simply as “the Captain” brings him from his boarding school to London. Victor becomes the surrogate son and companion of a woman named Liza, who renames him “Jim” and depends on him for any news about the world outside their door. Raised in these odd yet touching circumstances, Jim is never quite sure of Liza's relationship to the Captain, who is often away on mysterious errands. It is not until Jim reaches manhood that he confronts the Captain and learns the shocking truth about the man, his allegiances, and the nature of love.

Publishers Weekly

Exquisitely understated, moving and graced by humorous touches, Greene's new novel draws the reader into intriguing events related by narrator Victor Baxter. Now age 28, he tells of his 12th birthday when a stranger, ``The Captain,'' takes him from school on an outing from which he never returns. The man says he won Victor from ``the Devil, your father,'' and brings him to live in a drab London flat with Liza, who has lost a child. It's all right with the boy; his mother is dead and Baxter Sr. doesn't want him. He obeys the Captain's wishes to change his name to Jim and become Liza's son. Life with substitute parents is interrupted by the Captain's frequent absences on ``jobs'' that bring detectives to question the little family about money the Captain has sent them, but he remains free to pursue his suspicious enterprises. After many years, during a time when the adventurer has been on a secret operation in Panama, a letter arrives asking Liza to join him. Jim goes instead, however, for reasons he doesn't explain to the Captain, now known as Smith. A sly American called Quigly and others are dangerously interested in father and son. There is a shocking end to the story, whose core, revealed gradually through layers of mystery, speculates on the nature of love and the omnipotence of ``the enemy,'' and has an unexpected connection to contemporary events. 40,000 first printing; $25,000 ad/promo; BOMC alternate. (October)