Book summary

When Charlie Fortnum, an Englishman who acts as "Honorary Consul" to the British subjects of a small town in Argentina, is kidnapped by Marxist guerillas, a chain of events is set in motion that draws both apathetic and committed bystanders into a confrontation with the forces of authority. Leon Rivas, a renegade priest, joins the guerillas and is ultimately ordered to kill Fortnum; Eduardo Parr, a Buenos Aires physician who seduces Fortnum's wife early in the story, becomes obsessed with saving him. Fortnum himself becomes a hapless pawn of circumstance when it becomes clear that the British Crown considers him not worth the ransom. Written with Greene's characteristic eye for squalor and decay, THE HONORARY CONSUL is a gripping and moving tale.

Media reviews

"Without imputing the thesis to Greene..., veteran readers may guess, as I do, that in it he has found at last the ultimate story for which his work has been a search. Confronted with the bones of the plot, we can now look back on the previous fleshings and judge them again. They all seem alive and joined in a progress, however broken and bizarre, toward a huge destination; the latest in line--The Honorary Consul--is one of the lithest, surely not the last. A story both known and told."