This is an excellent thriller by James Hadley Chase. As the parable that gives the book its title tells you, it is a story about greed. It is also about trust, loyalty, betrayal, class conflict, and other things. The book was originally published in 1949, but somehow it feels as if it were written in an earlier era. It is a story that takes place in London and has a British character about it. It is the story of a young girl who worked in a West End cafe where all the thieves, connivers, and other charlatans used to gather. One of them involves her in a robbery scheme where she is to play the part of a maid in a rich household and observe and find out how to open a safe. The story is about how she is convinced and perhaps connived into taking part in the scheme and the consequences of it. The question perhaps for the reader is whether Julie is a greedy, no-good, woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants or is she just a poor innocent swept up in schemes and romanced and blackmailed and tricked into doing things. ( )