Synopses & Reviews
An autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers' bar in the city's factory district, he will meet with the military attache from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins The Spies of Warsaw, the brilliant new novel by Alan Furst, lauded by The New York Times as America's preeminent spy novelist.
War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attache, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations.
Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters-Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence; the mysterious and sophisticated Dr. Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and Mercier's brutal and vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. And there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.
The Houston Chronicle has described Furst as the greatest living writer of espionage fiction. The Spies of Warsaw is his finest novel to date-the history precise, the writing evocative and powerful, more a novel about spies than a spy novel, exciting, atmospheric, erotic, and impossible to put down.
As close to heaven as popular fiction can get.
-Los Angeles Times, about The Foreign Correspondent
What gleams on the surface in Furst's books is his vivid, precise evocation of mood, time, place, a letter-perfect re-creation of the quotidian details of World War II Europe that wraps around us like the rich fug of a wartime railway station.
-Time
A rich, deeply moving novel of suspense that is equal parts espionage thriller, European history and love story.
-Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times, about Dark Star
Some books you read. Others you live. They seep into your dreams and haunt your waking hours until eventually they seem the stuff of memory and experience. Such are the novels of Alan Furst, who uses the shadowy world of espionage to illuminate history and politics with immediacy.
-Nancy Pate, Orlando Sentinel
Review
"Nobody does this stuff better than Furst because nobody can dramatize like he can the horrible realization that somebody else's politics will soon obliterate daily life as you know it." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Furst's latest novel is sure to be counted as one of the very best of the historical espionage genre. Literate, admirably plotted, and featuring a memorable protagonist, it is realistic and sad but hopeful and romantic." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"Furst cuts back a bit on the usual tension, but there is all of the wonderfully wistful late-'30s atmosphere that is his specialty." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Mr. Furst has created this book on a broad canvas. And he succeeds in doing so without losing sight of his narrative focus." Janet Maslin, New York Times
Synopsis
Set in Warsaw, Selsia, and Paris, Furst's stunning, action-packed new thriller combines espionage with deadly romance, all happening during the rearing threat of Hitler's gathering war against Europe.
Synopsis
An autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers' bar in the city's factory district, he will meet with the military attaché from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins
The Spies of Warsaw, the brilliant new novel by Alan Furst, lauded by the
New York Times as "America's preeminent spy novelist."
War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations.
Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence; the mysterious and sophisticated Dr. Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and Mercier’s brutal and vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. And there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.
About the Author
Often compared to Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, Alan Furst is a master of the spy thriller and one of the great war novelists of our time. He is the author of The Kingdom of Shadows, The Foreign Correspondent, Night Soldiers, Dark Star, The Polish Officer, and The World at Night. He lives in Sag Harbor, New York. Visit the author's website at www.alanfurst.net.