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A review by zare_i
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
4.0
This one took me longer to finish than I anticipated.
Story begins when Raven, assassin for hire, book protagonist and all-around anti-hero gets double-crossed after a high profile assassination he executed on Europe mainland. Cold and ruthless Raven is not interested in his marks, he knows only he needs to go to specific location, kill the mark and return back safely.
So when he gets betrayed his rage grows, not because of betrayal itself (risk o business ... I guess?) but because he was betrayed by his own kind, criminal underworld. If there is no honor amongst thieves what can man do - right? So he decides to take revenge and goes to north of England chasing the man that is responsible for putting police on Raven's track. On his way to kill the people that betrayed him Raven will cross paths with Anne, friendly and justice driven member of acting and dancing troupe and Mather, policeman and Anne's fiancee who is not sure what is going on and why is Anne found working alongside Raven.
Unlike stoic gunmen like say Delon's Le Samourai or Leon Professional, Raven is very much self-aware and runs on pure emotions and rage. After very hard childhood and aware that his harelip was cause of so many difficulties Raven thinks everybody is after him because of his scarred face (which I guess was quite an issue when the novel was written). We follow him as he moves from the cold calculated killer to someone truly touched, like an animal that was constantly beaten and then shown true kindness, by friendship and support of Anne (no matter she might have few hidden motives of her own). Raven is a tragic figure, man who survived only by living in great fear, man to be brought down after he accepts other's friendship and kindness.
Besides Raven author gives very good description of society classes - those at the top looking forward to profiteering from war either directly (money) or indirectly (other material or social privileges) and those at the bottom either dumb and witless about the horror of wars and seeking glory in it, or terrified to the very bone [since terrors from the last one are still fresh in memory]. This entire reaction and justification of war have left bitter taste in my mouth because they show how propaganda can direct nations in a very, very, very wrong direction (like last year......brrrr).
Only issue I had with the book was level of details and descriptions author paints in his story. It could be that today we are more or less more visual creatures and do not have problems imagining things [when provided with less information] - authors very detailed descriptions and the ways he handles character discussions (ticks and face expressions included) tend to be verbose, and as a result my reading pace would suddenly drop to very low rate. Again this could be me [English is not my mother tongue] but was a cause for longer than expected time period to finish the book. On the good side when action picks up it truly picks up and pages just fly away.
Very interesting story, recommended to fans of slower burning thrillers.
Story begins when Raven, assassin for hire, book protagonist and all-around anti-hero gets double-crossed after a high profile assassination he executed on Europe mainland. Cold and ruthless Raven is not interested in his marks, he knows only he needs to go to specific location, kill the mark and return back safely.
So when he gets betrayed his rage grows, not because of betrayal itself (risk o business ... I guess?) but because he was betrayed by his own kind, criminal underworld. If there is no honor amongst thieves what can man do - right? So he decides to take revenge and goes to north of England chasing the man that is responsible for putting police on Raven's track. On his way to kill the people that betrayed him Raven will cross paths with Anne, friendly and justice driven member of acting and dancing troupe and Mather, policeman and Anne's fiancee who is not sure what is going on and why is Anne found working alongside Raven.
Unlike stoic gunmen like say Delon's Le Samourai or Leon Professional, Raven is very much self-aware and runs on pure emotions and rage. After very hard childhood and aware that his harelip was cause of so many difficulties Raven thinks everybody is after him because of his scarred face (which I guess was quite an issue when the novel was written). We follow him as he moves from the cold calculated killer to someone truly touched, like an animal that was constantly beaten and then shown true kindness, by friendship and support of Anne (no matter she might have few hidden motives of her own). Raven is a tragic figure, man who survived only by living in great fear, man to be brought down after he accepts other's friendship and kindness.
Besides Raven author gives very good description of society classes - those at the top looking forward to profiteering from war either directly (money) or indirectly (other material or social privileges) and those at the bottom either dumb and witless about the horror of wars and seeking glory in it, or terrified to the very bone [since terrors from the last one are still fresh in memory]. This entire reaction and justification of war have left bitter taste in my mouth because they show how propaganda can direct nations in a very, very, very wrong direction (like last year......brrrr).
Only issue I had with the book was level of details and descriptions author paints in his story. It could be that today we are more or less more visual creatures and do not have problems imagining things [when provided with less information] - authors very detailed descriptions and the ways he handles character discussions (ticks and face expressions included) tend to be verbose, and as a result my reading pace would suddenly drop to very low rate. Again this could be me [English is not my mother tongue] but was a cause for longer than expected time period to finish the book. On the good side when action picks up it truly picks up and pages just fly away.
Very interesting story, recommended to fans of slower burning thrillers.