The Writer and the Traitor

The fascinating untold story of the mysterious, decades-long friendship between Graham Greene, one of the leading novelists of the twentieth century, and Kim Philby, Britain's most hated traitor.In The Writer and the Traitor, acclaimed historian Robert Verkaik sheds a completely fresh light on the enigmatic relationship between two giants of the twentieth century: Graham Greene, the internationally lauded novelist, and Kim Philby, the intelligence-officer-turned-traitor. The two men met as MI6 officers in London, joining forces in a deadly secret war to defeat the Nazis. But Greene unexpectedly resigned just days before British intelligence's greatest triumph—D-Day—and he used his experience in the intelligence services as a backdrop for his novels Our Man in Havana and The Human Factor and the screenplay The Third Man. Lurking within the pages lay suspicions of his friend and former colleague, with characters and plots echoing Philby's life. Was Philby the real Third Man? Did Greene's work contain coded messages and warnings of betrayal to MI6? Where did Greene's ultimate loyalties lie and who was he really working for? In this highly revealing narrative based on astonishing new archive material, Verkaik takes readers on a mesmerizing journey from pre-war Vienna to Cold War Moscow, via wartime Sierra Leone and London during the Blitz. This is more than just a riveting tale of espionage; it is the story of a mysterious friendship that survived against the odds. Ultimately, The Writer and the Traitor explores the perplexing question that nobody yet has answered: why did one of Britain's most famous writers remain loyal to Britain's most hated traitor? Read more