This book marks a departure of sorts for Alan Furst - moving from the salons of Western and Central Europe to the altogether more unstable terrain of the Balkans - an area yet to be explored in his fiction. In other respects, however, we're on classic Furst ground, following the double dealings of shady figures in the early years of the Second World War. The action takes place in the countryside of Macedonia, around the time of the British SIS inspired coup there in April of 1941, and then in Greece, especially Salonika, ...
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This book marks a departure of sorts for Alan Furst - moving from the salons of Western and Central Europe to the altogether more unstable terrain of the Balkans - an area yet to be explored in his fiction. In other respects, however, we're on classic Furst ground, following the double dealings of shady figures in the early years of the Second World War. The action takes place in the countryside of Macedonia, around the time of the British SIS inspired coup there in April of 1941, and then in Greece, especially Salonika, during the invasion itself. Like THE SPIES OF WARSAW, it's a multi-spy novel, involving Turkish, Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian operatives, with a double hero, or rather a principal and a strong second character. The latter is a senior police official in Salonika, involved in resistance as the Germans and Italians occupy the country.
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One of Alan Furst's strengths is absorbing the atmosphere of foreign lands, then playing it back to us as a silent character in the novel.
Calling the present work a 'thriller' or a 'spy' story is like calling A"Moby Dick" a fishing story. Furst gives us so much more, including a lack of the juvenile magical thinking that mars so much fiction. Here we have real life lived under extreme circumstances.
Highly recommended.
