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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Dark Star - Alan Furst

Awhile back a friend of mine who used to work in the publishing industry recommended that I check out books by Alan Furst. He said Alan Furst is who I should turn to for good historical fiction/spy novels/war novels/etc.

So I borrowed his copy of Dark Star. It's a good spy novel but a bit overwhelming because it's so heavy on the history...and I was a history major in college!

The story takes place pre-World War II, in 1937. Andre Szara is a Polish-born journalist working for the Russian newspaper Pravda. While just doing his job, he gets coerced into working with the NKVD (Soviet secret intelligence). Setting up base in Paris, Szara becomes pretty much a spy for Russia. He travels across Europe as a spy and a journalist, enlisting the help of an agent in Berlin with whom he develops romantic connections.

Ok. So a spy novel. But Furst knows his history...sometimes a little too much. But I loved the cloak and dagger feel of the book and the time period was just crazy. I can't imagine traipsing around Europe right before WWII.

I'm going to definitely check out his other books. I recently won another one of Furst's books, The Spies of Warsaw, over at Medieval Bookworm so I'll let you know how that one goes.

You can preview Dark Star over at Google Books to see if it's something you might want to check out.

Have you read any Alan Furst novels or other good spy novels?



3 comments:

  1. I read Night Soliders last year and LOVED it. I've been meaning to read more by him!

    In theory, I really enjoy spy novels. But in practice, I'm super picky, so it's hard to find ones I love! But le Carre's Cold War books are trusty for me.

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  2. This is definitely a new author to me. I shall have to investigate
    Thank you for your lovely comments on my blog. It is nice to know that the blogging world are a very caring bunch of people.

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  3. I read The Spies of Warsaw by Furst and liked it. I hope to read more of his books in the future. Would it be okay to link to your review on War Through the Generations?

    --Anna
    Diary of an Eccentric

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