‘Useful chap, eh?’Īfter a month or so Wormold receives a (coded) message, via the embassy, asking where’s the information they’re paying him for. Thus, our man in Havana is recruited.īack in Blighty, Hawthorne visits the Chief in his underground bunker in Maida Vale and very amusingly manoeuvres him into embroidering Wormold’s character, helping build a fantasy of a well-connected old planter type with contacts in high society. Wormold thinks of his daughter’s Country Club fees – and accepts. Wormold is in the middle of spluttering his opposition when Hawthorne mentions the £150 per month pay, plus expenses, plus extra money if he runs sub-agents. Out of the blue, a shifty Brit named Hawthorne comes sidling round the vacuum cleaner shop, takes Wormold for a few drinks, manhandles him into the loos (‘for security, old man’) and bamboozles him into becoming an agent for British Intelligence. She is hanging round with unsuitable company who encourage her to borrow a lot of money to buy a horse along with all the extras and to join the expensive, high society Country Club. His wife has left, leaving him in charge of their flighty and spoilt, St Trinians-y teenage daughter. He lives in Havana where he works as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Jim Wormold (worm + old, geddit?) is rather a failure in life.

Because of the dated way people speak it’s difficult not to see it as a black-and-white Ealing comedy and the book was in fact made into a movie in 1959, starring Alec Guinness as the hapless hero. A fine comic novel which, like Loser Takes All, keeps a good-humoured smile on your face as it leads you through a succession of humorous or farcical episodes.

Our man in havana by graham greene