Our Man in Havana

In pre-Castro Cuba, James Wormold's wife has left him for another man, leaving him alone with his teenage daughter Milly. Wormold's career as a vacuum cleaner salesman doesn't net enough to pay for Milly's champagne tastes, so when an acquaintance offers him work with the British secret service, he readily accepts. Unfortunately, Wormold has no information to relay to the home office, but he's not about to let a small matter like that keep him from the gravy train. Undaunted, he creates a vast network of agents, eventually passing off a sketch of a vacuum cleaner's circuit diagram as a secret military installation. This marvelous coup marks Wormold as a rising star and lands him his very own private secretary. But when people around him start dropping like flies, Wormold realizes that someone is taking his little game very, very seriously...This sparkling spoof is one of Greene's funniest and most accessible novels.