Brighton Rock By Graham Greene: A Thriller with a Difference

Brighton Rock

Graham Greene

[ Published by Penguin (Fiction)

ISBN: 0 14 000 4424]

This book is set in the form of a thriller.

The protagonist of this novel is Pinkie, a boy gangster in the pre-war Brighton underworld., a Catholic, dedicated to evil and damnation. He is often referred to in the book as the Boy. He inherited the gang from Kite after his death. Spicer, Cubbit and Dallow are some of his close friends. They first got suspicious about a reporter, Hale, who was then at Brighton on a promotional activity for his newspaper. From the very first moment Hale also got the intuition that he was going to be murdered. In order to save his life he badly wanted company. At last Ida Arnold, a lady with big bosom agreed to give him company. But Hale's sense of self-respect hold him to reveal the real cause for being panicked to Ida. The boys followed him everywhere. At a moment, when Ida went to ladies' room he was led to some place and ultimately became dead out of terror. The police thought his death natural. But Ida did not take this for granted. She in the process realized that Pinkie was the real cause of Hale's death. She was prepared to do anything to avenge her friend's death. She began her own investigation. The only witness were Rose, innocent Catholic girl of sixteen, working as waitress in a restaurant and Spicer. Pinkie got panicked by this investigation. He pushed Spicer from the staircase and made him dead. He determined to marry the young girl Rose because a wife, cannot give evidence against her husband. On the other hand Pinkie was losing ground Collonec, another Don, who is rich and also powerful. Ida was also closing in. He married Rose. She was devoted to him to the extreme. Cubbit left him and told in detail about the murder of Hale to Ida. Pinkie became desperate. He even planned to murder Rose. He went far away from the town with Rose. He made her write a suicide note and thrust a revolver into her hands for this purpose. At the last moment Ida intervened. Rose was saved. But Pinkie put Vitriol into his face to die. This ends the process of avenging Hale's death. But Rose did not repent for marrying him, she rather wished to be damned as well. At last she left with hope of bearing Pinkie's child who would eventually pray for the sin of his father.

The sense of suspense prevents us from leaving the book unread for long. Greene's portryal of the Brighton scene made us see the scene. He left no detail. This blending of suspense with Virginia Woolf like minute detail made it a classic work.