I know…I know…the photograph above is obviously not an illustration from the book, Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene, but it’s the project I worked on while listening to this audiobook. I enjoyed both the reading/listening and the knitting! I’d never read any of Graham Greene’s books before, but had looked at them in the bookstore for years thinking I really needed to read one someday. Someday finally came, and I’m glad it did.

Our Man in Havana is a political satire, written in 1958. James Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana, and he has a 17-year old daughter, Milly, that he dotes on. He really can’t afford all the things Milly demands, so when a British Secret Intelligence Service agent approaches and tries to recruit him, he agrees. The money is good and will get even better if he can recruit other agents. However, Wormold really doesn’t have the nature to be a spy, nor does he have the contacts. He has imagination, however, and makes up his contacts and their reports. When pressured by the home office for photographs of secret military constructions, Wormold draws some diagrams of “new weaponry” based on his most updated vacuum cleaner, and sends them off to England. The problem is…some of the agents he’s invented bare a resemblance to real people, and suddenly those “agents” are in mortal danger.

There is a film version of this book, starring Alec Guinness (who would be perfect as this character) and I would love to see it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track it down on either video or DVD.

This was another enjoyable book read for Carl V’s R.I.P. III Challenge.