The Confidential Agent

In Greene’s “magnificent tour-de-force among tales of international intrigue,” rival agents engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse in prewar England ( The New York Times ).   D., a widowed professor of Romance literature, has arrived in Dover on a peaceful yet important mission. He’s to negotiate a contract to buy coal for his country, one torn by civil war. With it, there’s a chance to defeat fascist influences. Without it, the loyalists will fail. When D. strikes up a romantic acquainta