The city of Vienna, one February after the Second World War, is ruined, cold and full of underground activity. To this city comes Rollo Martins, a writer from England, to meet his old school friend and hero Harry Lime who is doing such good work at the International Refugee Office. When Martins arrives, he is told that his friend has just died, run down by a car in the street. Everyone tells the same story of the accident, except one man - who is murdered the next day. Rollo Martins, we are told, believes in friendship. So the things that happen to him later are a worse shock to him than they would be to you or me. Graham Greene explains how.