Graham Green - The Third Man

The Third Man by Graham Green review on show by Malcolm

Inspired or not by the release of Peter Mandelsons’ book The Third Man I decided to read the proper book of the same title by Graham Greene! Green originally wrote this a screen play which famously starred Orson Welles as Harry Lime and with a theme tune played on Zither which topped the charts in the 1950’s. I’m sure my dad had some type of poorly functioning toy zither when I was a kid – that and a Jew’s harp!

Anyway Harry Lime is a racketeer drug dealer based in post war Vienna. The drug he deals with is the recently discovered antibiotic penicillin, stolen from the military hospital. It is so valuable that to maximise profits dealers diluted them with water. Needless to say some, including children, died from the use of the watered-down drugs.

Harry invites his old friend Rollo Martins, a writer of poor westerns, to Vienna to help him with his work. Rollo is unaware of the nature of the enterprise. On his arrival he learns that Harry has been killed in a car accident and his funeral is that day. At the funeral he meets with the British Military Police who tell Rollo of the suspected black market Lime was involved in. One of the policemen thinking he is a more famous literary figure also invites him to talk to local book club – so Rollo delays his departure and stays on.
He is met by Kurtz, a friend of Harry’s who relates that 2 of them carried Harry’s body to the side of the street outside his apartment after the accident and tells him that as he was dying Harry asked him to look after him and his girl Anna. But Rollo, a little incredulous about the whole affair asks a few too many questions. The porter at Harry’s apartment swears three men assisted at the accident, but unexpectedly he is found dead the next day.

Rollo meets Harry’s girl Anna, an actress, and falls in love with her. He visits her apartment to say goodbye and on leaving he sees Harry, alive and well. Harry flees and vanishes and unable to catch him up Rollo summons Calloway, one of the policemen, who discovers that Lime has escaped into the sewer system through a kiosk and realises that Lime has been using the sewer tunnels to move about the city. The British police exhume Lime's coffin and find another man, an orderly from a military hospital, buried in his place. Harry had staged his own death to avoid detection. Harry Lime was the Third Man at the scene of the car accident. The police ask Rollo to help capture Harry and the hunt through the sewers of Vienna is on.

Bit like Le Carré – or should it be the other way around. There are brilliant descriptions of Vienna, devastated by and recovering from World War II, divided into four separate zones, each governed abysmally by one of the victorious Allies, and a jointly-administered international zone. These all indicate the chaos in which the novel is set.
I haven’t read any Graham Green since school so this was a return to his work from a new angle. A light read, plot not quite convincing enough in places but overall most enjoyable. I shall certainly go back for more.

Malcolm Martland: Broadcast on Radio Scilly 107.9FM 16 December 2010