THIRD MAN AND THE FALLEN IDOL

Two short novels by Graham Greene, both of them re-workings of successful screenplays. THE THIRD MAN, based on the 1949 film, is the story of a writer who goes to postwar Vienna to work for a friend who turns out to be a gangster and black marketeer. THE FALLEN IDOL, a novelization of the 1948 film that was, in turn, based on Greene's short story "The Basement Room," is about a little boy who inadvertently betrays the family butler--his friend--to the police when the man's wife dies suddenly.