Set in 1930s Brighton, this noir thriller follows Pinkie Brown, a teenage gangster who murders a rival and desperately tries to cover it up. When a naive waitress, Rose, threatens to expose him, Pinkie marries her to keep her quiet, while journalist Ida Arnold seeks justice. Blending crime drama with Catholic themes of sin and redemption, Greene presents a chilling portrait of moral ambiguity and youthful sociopathy. Brighton Rock is both a gripping crime story and a profound meditation on good and evil.
An English novelist, short story writer, playwright, and journalist, renowned for his complex and often morally ambiguous narratives that explored Catholicism, espionage, and the human condition. His works, including The Power and the Glory, The Quiet American, and The End of the Affair, often blended suspense with deep psychological and ethical inquiries, establishing him as a major 20th-century literary figure.
The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.
The murder of brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov changes the lives of his sons irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, driven to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother, Smerdyakov. Dostoyevsky's dark masterwork evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.
by Sarah Waters
Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners - three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy. Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching... Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret... Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover... Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances. Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant.
This satirical classic follows Lemuel Gulliver’s fantastical voyages to strange lands—from tiny Lilliputians to giant Brobdingnagians, and beyond. Each journey critiques human nature, politics, and society through absurdity and exaggeration. Beneath its fantastical surface lies sharp social commentary on power, pride, and cultural hypocrisy. Swift’s wit and imagination make Gulliver’s Travels a timeless work of political satire and philosophical reflection, as relevant today as when it was published in 1726.