#7 A Passage To India by E.M.Forster

What happened to Adela Quested in the Marabar Caves?

That is the question at the heart of E.M. Forster's novel about the fragility of Anglo-Indian relationships and racial tension in colonial India. After a mysterious event during a visit to the Marabar Caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Miss Quested, a naive young woman recently arrived from England. As the trial begins, the darker side of colonialism is exposed. This is not the India of white linen suits, gin and tonics and polo but an India of simmering resentment, countless cultural misunderstandings and, of course, breath-taking racism.

It's hard to say whether I liked this book or not. Like a lot of 19th and early 20th century fiction, it's a bit heavy going (lots of description, lots of talking about feelings etc) so not really a book for the breakfast table. However when I did settle down to it, I did get absorbed in it. I wanted to find out how it all would end. I was a bit disappointed though. You never do find out what happened in the Caves of Marabar but I suppose that isn't the tale that Forster had to tell. It wasn't even all about colonialism. At the book's very core is Forster's dissection of the human character itself. His characters are not heroic. They are bigoted, naive, repressed, selfish and as the trail continues, both Indians and the English become bitter and resentful.

In Forster's own words A Passage to India is "about something wider than politics... about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and in the Indian sky". And that is exactly what you get; a sprawling novel that explores not only the fragile and dangerous realities of colonialism but tries to pin down the very nature of India and the people within it.

#6 Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Written in 1958, Our Man in Havana is a secret service comedy based on Greene's own stint with MI6 in West Africa. Set against the absurdities of the Cold War, it tells the blackly comic tale of Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman recruited into the Secret Service. Needing money but having no real information to offer, Wormold lets his imagination run wild, claiming expenses for fictional agents and sending false drawings of non-existent secret installations (based on parts of a dismantled vacuum cleaner!). However Wormold's scheme unravels with darkly humorous consequences when MI6 and other agencies start taking his activities seriously. Our Man in Havana was originally intended as a screenplay but permission was denied from the censors, who stuffily informed him that any play poking fun at the work of the Secret Service was damn unpatriotic.

Like his other, earlier comedies and thrillers, Our Man in Havana always took second place in Green's own mind to his later 'catholic' novels. That's probably true. While Our Man in Havana was good, blackly comic in places and an enjoyable read, it wasn't especially memorable. Our Man in Havana is the only Greene novel I'd read so far but my Dad, who went through a Graham Greene phase when he was in sixth form, reliably informs me that his other novels have a much greater impact.

Read On Other novels by Greene include The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Human Factor

#5 Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

Probably one of the most famous political thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal was published in 1971 and focuses around a plot to assassinate Charles de Gualle.

The book is split into three chapters: Anatomy of a Plot, Anatomy of a Manhunt and Anatomy of a Kill. Anatomy is the right word as in each chapter Forsyth dissects every step of the dangerous waltz between the assassin and the authorities in astonishing detail. As the plot progresses the stakes become ever higher with both luck and misfortune befalling each and sending the waltz spinning into a new direction.

From the very first page you are hit first by the sheer scale of the book as it encompasses not only the movements of the assassin but the manoeuvrings of police departments in two countries, the French Government and a terrorist organisation in hiding. Secondly you are hit by Forsyth's meticulous plotting. Every single detail is in there, including (and this caused a stir at the time) exact instructions on how to obtain a false British passport. Yet all this detail doesn't really get in the way of the story. Oddly it adds to it, making it read like a news article.

Forsyth used to be a journalist and in many ways The Day of the Jackal reads like a news story. So many political thrillers are centred around a single character who, more often than not, has a troubled past which either hinders him (and it is always a him) or drives him on. Unusually The Day of the Jackal is impersonal. Forsyth rarely strays from the here and now and never explores the assassin's background or motivations. You don't even find out his name.

The inclusion of The Day of the Jackal on the list of the 1,000 best books may raise some literary eyebrows but that's missing the point. Yes, it's not literature but a book doesn't have to be worthy to be a bloody good read. And that's what The Day of the Jackal is; a cracking political thriller that won't delve deep into the soul but is a very enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

Read On The Odessa File

Other similar works include The Walking Dead by Gerald Seymour; The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins; Soldier No More by Anthony Price; The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum; The Flight of the Storks by Jean-Christophe Grange.