Greene liked to quote Chekhov’s aphorism that a writer is 'not a confectioner, not a cosmetician, not an entertainer.' Anderson’s narrative is certainly entertaining, but he is no confectioner, and the dark, poignant tale he tells is far the better for it. Anderson’s critique raises the question: If not Eisenhower’s particular brand of containment, then what? Most of the time the book leaves this unanswered. Anderson’s book is a period piece, covering the years 1944 to 1956 - but the climate of fear and intolerance that it describes in Washington also feels uncomfortably timely. Anderson is at his best, however, when he plows fresh ground. The story of Wisner, the head of the early intelligence apparatus’s covert action arm, has been well told many times before. Some of the people in this book will be familiar to students of C.I.A. for all their ill-advised or bungled covert ops - which included coups from Tehran to Guatemala City - it is impossible not to be a little swept up in the spectacle of this bygone era when intrepid individuals actually shaped history, even if it was often for the worse. All the characters of The Quiet Americans could have stepped from a film set - and some of them actually had.

Lying and stealing and invading, it should be said, make for captivating reading, especially in the hands of a storyteller as skilled as Anderson.

takes its title from Greene’s classic - and shares much of its disillusionment.

The quiet americans scott anderson