Another Furst | Spies of the Balkans: A Novel

Great service. | Spies of the Balkans: A Novel | Alan Furst

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	• Spies of the Balkans: A Novel Alan Furst Random House, 2010 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 70 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An interesting spy novel but not great literature

The setting, story and characters are engaging, but this is nowhere near great literature. If you're looking for a taste of historical fiction, this may satisfy you.

Another Furst

Alan Furst specializes in the particular, oppressive strangeness Adolph Hitler unleashed on Europe between 1938 and 1945. Country by country, the painstaking researcher and elegant storyteller introduces you to the way Hitler's onslaught devastated nations you might have trouble putting on the map -- both historically and geographically. You'll keep turning back to the map each novel includes. This one, his 11th and newest, takes you to Greece, where the war is delivered not by Hitler but by his envious ally Mussolini -- though you can bet Hitler doesn't let himself be one-upped.
Characters carry the ordeal into your heart. Costa Zannis, like all Furst's protagonists, has better things to do, including lovemaking, than resistance, but his principles -- and a beautiful woman -- draw him in.
If you loved Raymond Chandler, put Alan Furst on your list -- starting with this, one of his best.

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Great service.

Book arrived on time and in the condition stated in its description, I'd use this vendor again.

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World War II Suspense

Suspense builds in this remarkable world War II historical novel set in Greece. From the first page to the end in this clever story events move much as they did in the 1940s with the insertion of an heroic Greek policeman helping German refugees flee the Nazis.

Maybe not Furst's best, but very good.

I read this on Kindle.
Only reason I am giving it five rather than four stars is that I'm saving five stars for some of Furst's other novels, such as my favorite, The World at Night.
It's a VERY good book and introduces a terrific central character, the Greek police officer Costa Zannis, one of Furst's best creations. One can only hope that he will bring Costa back for another book -- the ending looks like he's setting that up.
I do have a caveat about the women characters. Costa's three lovers (one Englishwoman, two Greeks) are not exactly convincing. I found Demetria particularly implausible. Furst has done much better by his women characters in other novels.

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Greece, 1940. Not sunny vacation Greece: northern Greece, Macedonian Greece, Balkan Greece?the city of Salonika. In that ancient port, with its wharves and warehouses, dark lanes and Turkish mansions, brothels and tavernas, a tense political drama is being played out. On the northern border, the Greek army has blocked Mussolini?s invasion, pushing his divisions back to Albania?the first defeat suffered by the Nazis, who have conquered most of Europe. But Adolf Hitler cannot tolerate such freedom; the invasion is coming, it?s only a matter of time, and the people of Salonika can only watch and wait.

At the center of this drama is Costa Zannis, a senior police official, head of an office that handles special ?political? cases. As war approaches, the spies begin to circle, from the Turkish legation to the German secret service. There?s a British travel writer, a Bulgarian undertaker, and more. Costa Zannis must deal with them all. And he is soon in the game, securing an escape route?from Berlin to Salonika, and then to a tenuous safety in Turkey, a route protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangsters. And hunted by the Gestapo.

Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a local shipping magnate.

Declared ?an incomparable expert at his game? by The New York Times, Alan Furst outdoes even his own finest novels in this thrilling new book. With extraordinary authenticity, a superb cast of characters, and heart-stopping tension as it moves from Salonika to Paris to Berlin and back, Spies of the Balkans is a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to right?in many small ways?the world?s evil.

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