My favorite Greene novel I've read thus far (I really liked the other two, The Quiet American and The Human Factor as well) and an unbelievably lean and concise (~160 pages!) expression of everything I find dazzling about his work. Great dialogue, wonderfully terse but evocative prose, rich and deep characterizations (especially for a satirical genre-spoof), and really elegant plotting. The story is about a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana who gets recruited to head a spy network for the Secret Intelligence Service despite his reluctance and no relevant experience. But his daughter has expensive tastes, so he decides to just make up agents and reports out of thin air and pocketing the money meant to go to these agents. Then people start dying...

I really found the lighter and more comedic approach of this did wonders to elevate all the familiar interests and themes that I recognized from The Human Factor and The Quiet American. The humor never snuffs out the weariness of the characters, but it provides a great contrast that I thought sharpened everything around it. Does he write in this mode often? Obviously something like The Third Man also has a lot of wit, but it's tone is much heavier than this. Also, if I wanted to move on to some of Greene's more literary work, what book of his would you recommend?