Crime & detection · 1938 · novel

Brighton Rock

by Graham Greene

Brighton Rock is a novel by Graham Greene, published in 1938 and later adapted for film and theatre. The novel is a murder thriller set in 1930s Brighton. The first of Greene's works to explore Catholic themes and moral issues, its treatment of class privilege and the problem of evil is paradoxical and ambivalent. The murder of the gang boss Kite allows the seventeen-year-old sociopath Pinkie to take over his gang. The murder of Kite had been brought about because of a report by Charles "Fred" Hale in the Daily Messenger about his slot machine racket. Now Hale has been sent to Brighton to distribute cards anonymously for a newspaper competition and realises that he is being hunted by Pinkie's mob. Hale meets middle-aged Ida Arnold by chance in a pub and then on the Palace Pier as the mob is closing in, but he is snatched away without her realising what has happened to him. To confuse the police investigation, Pinkie has gang member Spicer distribute Hale's cards about the town and then tries to retrieve one card from the café in which sixteen-year-old Rose is working as a waitress. Since Rose had spotted Spicer leaving the card, Pinkie realises that she can now disprove his...

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