The Secret Agent

Imagine a lazy shopkeeper named Mr. Verloc who sells yucky pictures but is secretly a spy for bad guys from another country. His boss makes him pretend to be an anarchist and blow up a big science place called the Greenwich Observatory to make the government mad at all the anarchists. Verloc takes his simple-minded brother-in-law Stevie to help carry the bomb, but boom—it goes off too soon, Stevie dies, Verloc gets hurt, and his wife Winnie gets super sad and angry, stabs Verloc, and runs away. Everyone is chasing everyone, and it's a sad story about how sneaky plans and mean ideas hurt innocent people like Stevie the most.

Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Agent' (1907) is a gripping political thriller set in late Victorian London, centering on Adolf Verloc, a lethargic secret agent employed by a foreign embassy to infiltrate a circle of anarchists while maintaining a facade as the proprietor of a seedy pornographic bookstore. Provoked by his bombastic counselor Vladimir, Verloc is coerced into orchestrating a spectacular terrorist act—a bombing at the Greenwich Observatory—to discredit revolutionary groups and provoke repressive legislation. Reluctantly, he enlists his mentally disabled brother-in-law Stevie, whose innocent enthusiasm leads to catastrophic miscalculation when the bomb detonates prematurely on Verloc's person, killing Stevie and maiming Verloc. The aftermath spirals into profound tragedy, exposing the hollow cores of ideology, loyalty, and humanity. Verloc's wife, Winnie, driven by maternal devotion to her vulnerable brother, murders her husband in a rare moment of fierce agency before fleeing in horror. Pursued by the shrewd Assistant Commissioner and the dogged Chief Inspector Heat, the narrative dissects bureaucratic machinations, the Professor's nihilistic fanaticism with his detonator, and the profound alienation pervading London's underbelly. Conrad masterfully blends irony, psychological depth, and social critique, portraying terrorism not as heroic rebellion but as futile, self-destructive farce amid indifferent modernity.