Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt "Papa Doc" and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence man-these are the "comedians" of Greene's title. Hiding behind their actors- masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. They are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself.