'He was ready for more deaths.' Pinkie Brown, a young gangster wielding a razor blade and a bottle of vitriol, will kill anyone to stay alive and free. In the first of his major novels, Graham Greene looks into this brutal mind and finds there a yearning for repentance. Brighton Rock (1938) is both a thriller and the study of soul in torment. Pinkie is hunted down both by Ida, a woman bursting with easy certainties about what is right and wrong, and by a mysterious power of pity and mercy. Set against seaside amusements and race-track protection rackets, this story, twice filmed, has become one of the classics of modern literature, mapping out the strange border between holiness and savagery.

With an Introduction by Professor Richard Greene.