Brighton Rock

The narration of this audio book is excellent, a pleasure to listen to. The narrator has a cool voice of authority that really suits the story.
This is my first Greene novel, I had never considered reading him before but I was hooked from the opening sentence, which draws you right in. I won't say anything to spoil the story but it has a fantastic sense of doom hanging over it and you can actually feel pity for the most unlikable character.

A true classic and one of Graham Greene's best. Samuel West brings this alive and evokes all the flesh crawling muted horror of the book and film alike.

What a great book. It is timeless. The narrator was easy to listen to. The story was gripping and the characters fascinating. I would highly recommend this book.

Having gone through the pleasure of linking Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair and Neil Jordan’s 1999 film version of the same, the release of Rowan Joffe’s 2010 refresh of Brighton Rock and John Boulting’s film classic seemed an excellent summer project. The basis for this has, of course, to be a stimulating original text - and this is exactly what Greene provides here. There is so much that is so highly specific. The backdrop of pre-war Brighton, racetrack chicanery, razor gang thuggery, a mesmeric young central couple character juxtaposed against the old sweats and sweethearts of the seaside. Fascinating to follow the thread of Catholicism that does not feature nearly as strongly in either of the film versions and great to get the full picture that neither film adaptations manage to achieve. For what it’s worth, I found the Boulting Brother’s translation to be the better of the two - but neither hold a stick of rock to Greene’s original vision.

I feel compelled to write a review for this book to save others from painful boredom. I couldn’t get past half way as the personality of the characters just never developed and the story seemed to droan on forever without interest. This may be the taste of some people, but only a very narrow audience of people will be entertained by it.

I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. Audible - thank you for having such wonderful audiobooks in your site!