Twenty-One Stories

In "The End of the Party," a game of hide-and-seek takes a terrifying turn in the dark. In "The Innocent," a romantic gets a rude awakening when he finds a hidden keepsake from a childhood crush. A husband's sexual indiscretion is revealed in a most public and embarrassing way in "The Blue Film." A rebellious teen's flight from her petit bourgeois life includes a bad boy, a gun, and a plan in "A Drive in the Country." In "A Little Place off the Edgware Road," a suicidal man's encounter with a stranger in a grubby cinema seals his fate. A young boy is ushered into a dark world when he discovers the secrets adults hide in "The Basement Room." And in "When Greek Meets Greek," a clever con between two scoundrels carries an unexpected sting. In these and more than a dozen other stories, Greene confronts his usual themes of betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, faith and doubt, guilt and grief, and pity and pursuit.