Graham Greene called Our Man in Havana one of his "entertainments," but there is seriousness along with comedy in the 1958 novel. Set in Cuba just before Castro took power, the book satirizes the British Secret Service’s Cold War absurdity.
Jim Wormold, a Brit selling vacuums in Havana, is recruited to be a British undercover agent. He accepts because he needs the money to support his teenage daughter's expensive habits, but he has no clue about how to be a spy. He invents agents and scenarios that, incredibly, are believed back in London and spark real, hazardous consequences. As they unfold, Wormold emerges from his initial sappiness and becomes an inventive, gutsy character.
The year after the book was published, Our Man in Havana was adapted for a movie starring Alec Guinness.
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