Penguin Classics: Red: The Secret Agent : A Simple Tale (Paperback)

from MelmoththeLost

The blurb on the back of this book speaks of "ruthless irony" and "black satire", and it's not wrong. When I first read it last year I wasn't too impressed, being, perhaps, not in the mood to appreciate the said "ruthless irony" and "black satire". I'm pleased, therefore, that I put it aside for ...

from mausergem

The story starts as a comedy and ends in tragedy. Its a story of Mr.Verloc, a married man with a small bookstand. He is also a secret agent employed by a foreign govrnment and works with the revolutionaries and anarchists in the country. One day he is summoned by the new ambassador to the foreign...

from aliciamay

Mr. Verloc is a Russian secret agent keeping a shop in London where he lives with his wife, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother. Mr. Verloc has become comfortable and lazy in his role, but the Russian ambassador insists on action. Verloc puts together a bomb plot to blow up the Greenwich Obs...

from clq

This is a random read from the "1001 books you should read before you die"-list, so I knew nothing about this book other than its title. I started reading, and from the start I really didn't like it. In fact, I actively disliked it. I found the first half of the book to be a muddled and messy ble...

from Eyejaybee

A fantastic read. I first read this novel as an undergraduate nearly thirty years ago and was immediately taken by the sheer plausibility of it's setting and characters. Re-reading it now I was struck by how contemporary it seems, even though it was originally published as long ago as 1908, durin...