TY  - BOOK
AU  - Greene, Graham
TI  - The heart of the matter
SN  - 9781504052528 
AV  - B2430.T373 GRE 
PY  - 1948///
CY  - Harmondsworth
PB  - Penguin Books
KW  - Colonial administrators
KW  - Fiction
KW  - British
KW  - Africa
KW  -  Fiction
KW  - Married people
N2  -  	
"From first page to last ... an engrossing novel" of betrayal and espionage on a colonial outpost during World War II (The New York Times). In a British colony in West Africa, Henry Scobie is a pious and righteous man of modest means enlisted with securing borders. But when he's passed over for a promotion as commissioner of police, the humiliation hits hardest for his wife, Louise. Already oppressed by the appalling climate, frustrated in a loveless marriage, and belittled by the wives of more privileged officers, Louise wants out. Feeling responsible for her unhappiness, Henry decides against his better judgment to accept a loan from a black marketeer to secure Louise's passage. It's just a single indiscretion, yet for Henry it precipitates a rapid fall from grace as one moral compromise after another leads him into a web of blackmail, adultery, and murder. And for a devout man like Henry, there may be nothing left but damnation. Drawn from Graham Greene's own experiences as a British intelligence officer in Sierra Leone, The Heart of the Matter is "a powerful, deep-striking novel ... of a spirit lost in the darkness of the flesh"
ER  -