The Third Man

This is a short Graham Greene book - novella if you will.

It is a fast moving story, it doesn't hang about setting the scene, or going into in-depth descriptions, it just gets on with the mystery.

The way the story is told is interesting. The story is told as the recollections of Calloway, the English Colonel running the police in the British quarter of Vienna, post WWII. He explains the story of Rollo Martins, a novelist and friend of a British man living in Vienna, Harry Lime. Martins turns up in Vienna to visit Lime, only to find he died when hit by a car only a day before his arrival.
Calloway basically says to Rollo “just as well for him he died, we were about to pick him up for his criminal behaviour”. Rollo is displeased, and disbelieving, and after taking a swing at Calloway, sets off on a crusade to prove his deceased friend innocent.

Tucking into too much more plot would require the use of spoilers, so I will leave it at that.

This is a novella that doesn't take itself too seriously. It self mocks the genre, and it is pretty funny.

I enjoyed a number of bits, this one was good. The International Patrol turn up to arrest Anna (The IP are made up of the duty officer from the Russian, British, American and French forces, who drive about and jointly make decisions in the evenings as a police force):
There is a lot of comedy in these situations if you are not directly concerned. You need a background of Central European terror, of a father who belonged to a losing side, of house -searches and disappearances, before the fear outweighs the comedy. The Russian, you see, refused to leave the room while Anna dressed: the Englishman refused to remain in the room: the American wouldn't leave a girl unprotected with a Russian soldier, and the Frenchman – well, I think the Frenchman must have thought it was fun. Can't you imagine the scene? The Russian was just doing his duty and watched the girl all the time, without a flicker of sexual interest; the American stood with his back chivalrously turned, but aware, I am sure, of every movement; the Frenchman smoked his cigarette and watched with detached amusement the reflection of the girl dressing in the mirror of the wardrobe; and the Englishman stood in the passage wondering what to do next.

Four Stars.