Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

I've only read a few of Graham Greene's books, but in many of them, faith (Catholicism in particular) is so intertwined with the conventions of a crime or spy novel that it creates something that's not quite like anything else. In this case, we have a story about the various mobs in Brighton Rock, but the main character is, more than anything, a case study in the kind of nihilism that can fester in belief.

First, the plot. There has been a recent shakeup in control of the crime in Brighton Rock - a former mob leader was offed, perhaps accidentally, by another, and a young member of the deceased leader's gang is trying to step into his shoes. Pinkie, desperate to make his mark, he decides what is needed is to make an example of a man who owed his gang money. But while the murder goes off without a hitch (and they get an almost disappointing verdict of natural death, which will strike fear into no one), one of Pinkie's men screws up when he leaves a piece of evidence in a cafe. Pinkie tries to retrieve it, and here we start a long chain of how trying to fix one mistake leads to another and another and another.

Pinkie scrambles to find solid ground to consolidate his control, while all the while everything goes wrong, and while he thinks he's smart and can think long term, the seeds of his own destruction are already sown.

That's the frame of the story. The meat is really in the two main female characters, Rose and Ida (although, notably, when we first meet Ida singing, she's referred to as Lily.)  Rose is the waitress who knows a piece of incriminating evidence that could sink them all. Pinkie courts her, desperately, to keep her quiet, and although he despises her, and the entire idea of sex, love, and connection to another human being, he becomes determined to marry her so she can't testify against him.

Ida, on the other hand, was with the murdered man not long before it happened, and is convinced something hinky went on - and possessed by a sense of justice, makes it her mission to uncover the truth, to find the killers, and, as time goes on, to save Rose from a horrible fate.

This is where it gets interesting. Rose is as Catholic as Pinkie, and both are insanely fatalistic. Far from faith offering opportunities for redemption, these two are more than ready, as soon as they think they've committed a mortal sin, to fall prey to nihilism - Pinkie in particular thinks he's been doomed since birth anyway, and hell is his natural habitation, so why shouldn't he fight and scrap and kill and maim?  Rose, because she loves him, wants to share his fate, and so becomes a hated accessory.

Ida, on the other hand, doesn't appear to believe in any kind of organized religion - she lives for here and now, and because she does, she has a stronger sense of justice than anyone else in this story. Nothing is going to make things right after death, so she is bound and determined to make sure things turn out right now. She is more actively engaged in doing the right thing - in this case, bringing a murderer to justice - than are either of the Catholic characters.

I was fascinated by this book, and I'm glad I read it. And oh, after reading the whole thing, that last sentence is a gut punch and a half. Oof.