The Secret Agent
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The Secret Agent is a 1907 novel by Joseph Conrad, a dark, and darkly comic story of spies, terrorists, anarchists, and agents provocateurs of an unnammed foreign power plotting and counter-plotting in the back streets of London, England in the early 20th Century. The novel centers on Verloc, a shop-owner, phony-anarchist and double-agent, who becomes embroiled in an ambitious terrorist plan to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. Other characters include Verloc's wife Winnie and Winnie's brother, Stevie; Ossipon and Michaelis, two anarchists; and Chief Inspector Heat, of the London police.
The Secret Agent is supposedly one of Ted Kaczynski's favorite books.
Film adaptations
It has been adapted for film and television on several occasions. In 1936, Alfred Hitchcock made the story into a film called Sabotage, and in 1996, Christopher Hampton directed a version starring Bob Hoskins as Verloc, with Patricia Arquette, Gérard Depardieu, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Izzard and an uncredited Robin Williams as an extremely sinister Professor.