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Fans of Alan Furst are a passionate lot, and I count myself among them. Put a group of Furst’s readers in a room, and before long they will be ardently advocating for their favorites (I always come out swinging for The World at Night), only to change their minds, and change them again, as they are reminded of an especially harrowing episode in The Polish Officer, or a perfect turn of phrase in Blood of Victory, or a sumptuous love scene in The Spies of Warsaw.
So which of Furst’s novels is his best? In my opinion, it’s an eleven-way tie.
Now, make that twelve.
Furst’s elegant thrillers of World War II Europe are often grouped with the works Graham Greene and John le Carre for the literary quality of his prose. The comparison is apt, but Furst is really one of a kind: a novelist whose body of work has recast his genre, elevating it to the level of literature. He has a way of getting everything right, putting every sentence to flawless use with a compact, suggestive style. In just a few brush strokes, Furst can capture the essence of a character—man or woman, friend or foe, Gestapo officer or society doyenne—and his ability to evoke a setting makes me weep with envy. Furst’s foggy Paris streets and glittering salons aren’t just places we see; we actually seem to visit them, bathing in their rich atmospheres. When a Furst character steps into a café in the 16th Arrondissment, you can practically smell the Gauloises smoke wafting from the pages.
But what truly sets Furst apart is his characters’ alignment with their circumstances. Like every great novelist, he understands that history is an overlay of private lives and public events, and therein lies the richest, most morally edifying human drama. Furst’s protagonists aren’t professional spies. Dashing, yes. Romantic, to be sure. Capable of the bon mot, without doubt. But in their hearts, they are men and women like the rest of us, adrift in the currents of their lives. It’s the exigencies of war, with all its political murk and unlikely gunpoint bedfellows, that ignite them to personal heroism. You can hear them saying, with existential fatalism, “Well, it’s been a marvelous life—wonderful food, sumptuous parties, and surprising nights of love—but I guess it’s over now. I’ll have to become something more. Count me in.”
Mission to Paris is trademark Furst, a book not merely to read but to luxuriate in. Vienna-born Fredric Stahl, nee Franz Stalka, is a Hollywood actor of modest renown sent to Paris to star in a French movie named, ironically, “Apres la Guerre” (“After the War”). The year is 1938; Hitler has just taken Czechoslovakia and set his sights on Poland. With his American connections, high profile, and Germanic ancestry, Stahl attracts the interest of the political arm of the Reich’s Foreign Ministry; their goal is to manipulate him into making a public declaration against French rearmament. Initially, all Stahl wants to do is enjoy his time in Paris, where fond memories and sensual adventures await, and finish his film, for which he has high hopes. But he can’t stay on the sidelines for long; the next thing he knows, he’s flying to Berlin to judge a film festival of nakedly propagandist “mountain movies,” with stacks of Swiss francs stuffed inside his suit to purchase Nazi secrets. The night he meets his contact—the glamorous Russian actress Olga Orlova, who proves surprisingly adept with a silencer—Stahl awakens to the smell of smoke and the sound of shattering glass: beyond the windows of his hotel room, Kristallnacht is in full swing.
What happens then? Please. I’ve said too much as it is.
Suffice to say that for Furst’s legion of the obsessed, the novel is everything we crave and more. And for newcomers—why there should still be any, I simply don’t know—it’s certain to send them back into his rich body of work, hungry for more.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Frederic Stahl, a Hollywood film star, travels from Beverly Hills to the boulevards of Paris. It is a dangerous, difficult, seductive time: Europe is about to explode, and the Parisians are living every night as though it were their last. As filming progresses, Stahl is drawn into a clandestine world of foreign correspondents, embassy officials, and spies of every sort. His engagements take him from the bistros of Paris to the back alleys of Morocco; from a Hungarian castle to Kristallnacht, and the chilling heart of the Third Reich. But can he survive as German operatives track him across Paris? Gripping, haunting, and deeply passionate, MISSION TO PARIS is the ultimate portrait of a people at war and Alan Furst's most panoramic, lovingly described, and finest book to date. The author of TV Book Club's SPIES OF THE BALKANS returns with a hugely evocative thriller set in wartime Paris. Includes Reading Group Notes. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780753828984
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780753828984
Book Description Condition: New. pp. 272. Seller Inventory # 49820551
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. The author of TV Book Club's SPIES OF THE BALKANS returns with a hugely evocative thriller set in wartime Paris. Includes Reading Group Notes. Seller Inventory # B9780753828984
Book Description Condition: New. In. Seller Inventory # ria9780753828984_new
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 288 pages. 7.72x5.08x0.83 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0753828987
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 585d762ac6a845e7506dc5f7cbf592ca
Book Description Condition: New. 2013. Paperback. The author of TV Book Club's SPIES OF THE BALKANS returns with a hugely evocative thriller set in wartime Paris. Includes Reading Group Notes. Num Pages: 272 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 202 x 141 x 20. Weight in Grams: 274. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780753828984
Book Description Condition: New. 2013. Paperback. The author of TV Book Club's SPIES OF THE BALKANS returns with a hugely evocative thriller set in wartime Paris. Includes Reading Group Notes. Num Pages: 272 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 202 x 141 x 20. Weight in Grams: 274. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780753828984
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 18583353-n