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The Ministry of Fear

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The Ministry of Fear

By: Graham Greene
Narrated by: Oliver Chris
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

For Arthur Rowe the charity fête was a trip back to childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the terror of the Blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and a murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake, and from that moment on he's a hunted man, the target of shadowy killers, on the run and struggling to remember and to find the truth.

©2020 Graham Greene (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense War & Military Crime Military War

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Critic reviews

Greene was a force beyond his books (Melvyn Bragg)
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I thought the story gripping and liked that it wasn't clear whether it was meant to be realistic or surreal.

surreal or real

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Drew me in from the start. Intriguing psychology of main character. Powerful prose. I don't know how I overlooked this gem from Graham Greene . Very well read. I much recommend this audiobook.

Immensely enjoyable .

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I thought I had read all Graham Greene’s work, but somehow this one had slipped through the net. What gem! Classic Greene and beautifully narrated to.

Excellent listen

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I love Graham Greene books but had never listened to this one. It was captivating from the first chapter and the narration was absolutely perfect

Superb

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An unusual thriller. Hadn’t heard of this book before but it was a great find. I was totally gripped. Listen in the dark for maximum enjoyment!

Gripping

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The Ministry of Fear, later adapted into a film noir directed by Fritz Lang starring Ray Milland, is a wonderfully labyrinthine wartime adventure driven by paranoia and guilt. In a Blitz-battered world where the truth is stranger than fiction, Graham Greene presents a jaded protagonist, Arthur Rowe, who’s unwittingly caught up in a murderous espionage plot. But he has some dark secrets of his own. I first read the novel as a student - and key scenes have stayed with me. The audio version is well-narrated, though at times I wondered whether I should have re-read this in hard copy. Towards the end, I did lose track of certain characters and plot lines. Nonetheless, the story arc is cleverly constructed and relatively easy to grasp. Most memorable of all is the sense of dread and menace in a world turned upside down.

Novel Noir

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Oliver Chris is an excellent narrator. I felt fully immersed in the tension of the story. Brilliant, loved it, going to try another Graham Greene but wished there were more with the same narrator.

excellent narration and story

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Great narration that brings to life the mind and thinking of the main character. And a good story of an unfolding mystery

an enjoyable story and well read

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This is an unusual novel from Graham Greene. The quality writing, and the admirable narration, doesn't save the storyline, which is uneven and seems to have two plots. Psychological drama or spy caper? The interesting characters within keep you mildly interested in how the story will end. For me personally, it's not in my top five Greene books to read. The film version of this book is a spy caper and more entertaining, and well worth a viewing.

The Ministry of....?

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Written in 1943 this is an espionage thriller set in a London during the Blitz. It satisfies most as a piece of highly-honed period styling, being a take on the late Surrealism so trendy at the time. Thus, the protagonist's tragic quest through shabby reality is set in a theatre of dream and memory. I enjoyed this fusion of pulp mystery thriller and self-conscious artiness.

The clean modernity of Greene's prose lifts the artificiality of an ornate plot clear of the sort kitschy commercial surrealism which second-raters of the time seemed prone to. You can easily imagine it as a vehicle for Hitchcock to have adapted cinematically, being full of quirky characters and scenic details and shot-through with angsty atmosphere.

However, striking though it is as a piece of pop style, as a thriller with pretentions to literary substance it doesn't quite convince. I find the artificiality of the far-fetched plot makes the deeper underlying themes of spiritual quest in a nihilistic world seem a bit contrived and pretentious. The author's constantly trying to go for a sophisticated polish which comes off as a sort of sales pitch for a dark personal consciousness. In short, the fit isn't invisible enough to achieve the ambition. You get the sneaking impression that Greene is grooving on the blackness of Greeneland a little too much to be the truly classy adult entertainment he's aiming at.

I don't know where critics place the book in the author's oeuvre, but I'd guess it's not rated as being even in the same division as his later stuff.

But if you're up for a bit of slick period pop, go for it.

England, cake and guilt.

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