Read the INK Q&A with Edward Dolnick and save 30% on The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greateast Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century.
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Read the INK Q&A with Edward Dolnick and save 30% on The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greateast Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century.
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thomas2fpo has commented on (2) products.
The Foreign Correspondent: A Novel by Alan Furst
thomas2fpo, June 6, 2006
What is it about Furst's books that makes them so great? They all take place mainly in Paris, in the late 30's during the run up to WW II. They always deal with relatively ordinary people, people already laid low by events in Europe, who get caught up again and eventually have to make the choice to stand and fight in their own relatively insignificant way, a way that's not going to make any difference to the "big picture", but will in terms of duty and honor to yourself and those around you. You read these books and want to think that you would be good enough and strong enough to make the same choices. Yet you can never know for sure until you're actually called. It's this uncertainty that's conveyed so well in these books.I was hooked on this book with the very first sentence: "In Paris, the last days of autumn; a gray, troubled sky at daybreak, the fall of twilight at noon, followed, at seven-thirty, by slanting rains and black umbrellas as the people of the city hurried past the bare trees." Just perfect! Then you're off, following Carlos Weisz into the emigre world of Paris, a world of people living desperate lives, waiting for the axe of war to fall. Snap brimmed hats, trench coats, cafes, Galouises, storm troopers, brownshirts ... it's all there. A great re-creation.
(13 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril: A Novel by Paul Malmont
thomas2fpo, May 30, 2006
What a fantastic book! If you're into the pulps, or have a fascination with 30's and 40's mysteries, this is must reading. The story deals with the efforts of Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant, author of The Shadow stories) and Lester Dent (aka Kenneth Robeson, author of the Doc Savage novels) to save the world from a deadly gas. They're helped at critical times by L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein. And a variety of other recognizable period names make appearances. The story careens along from one slam bang, gee whiz adventure to another, just like the best of the pulps it eulogizes.This is an amazing first novel and I hope that Mr. Malmont has many more on the way.
(4 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)