Greene achieves narrative suspense by innovative means: tantalising concealment from the reader - and even from Fred’s killers - of exactly how he dies. Thanks to a clock on Brighton Pier, we even know the precise time of Fred’s death. From the outset, we know exactly who murdered Fred and why. The death of the former crime reporter Fred Hale at the hands of mobsters early in its pages is no normal “whodunnit”. The novel offers a richly textured sketch of gang wars in Brighton in the 1930s, and yet defies the conventions of detective fiction. Greene’s conflicted evaluation reflects something of the novel itself: a mood of twisting ambivalence runs through Brighton Rock from first to last. yet perhaps it is the best I ever wrote.” So opined Graham Greene, looking back in 1970 on his work of 1938. “ BRIGHTON ROCK began as a detective story and continued, I am sometimes tempted to think, as an error of judgement.
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