The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

Consistent with Furst's recent works: great settings are created, atmosphere this reader could feel, characters with human qualities and failings, and villians that make me want to take a shower. Furst's use of language reminds me of LeCarre. Just wish his books lasted longer.

Alan Furst fans will not be disappointed, even tho a little shorter than some of his other books. He reads so much like a "film noir" from the 40s or 50s, that you expect to see Humphrey Bogart come around a street corner at any moment.

I highly recommend all of his books, "Night Soldiers" being my favorite.

Ray in Retirement, FL

In "The Spies of Warsaw", Alan Furst's tenth novel about the pre-World War II period in various European countries, he effectively conveys the sense of forboding and insecurity that overlaid everyone's feelings. From the vantage point of hindsight you might question how he can maintain any suspense when we all already know the outcome of the German strategy to attack France through the Ardennes forest. But of course, he does so brilliantly by illustrating the almost impenetrable resistance at the French GHQ to question the utility of the Maginot Line or to imagine its being bypassed by the Germans.
His characters are believable, some very vulnerable, others capable and professional, and he infuses their relationships with the heavy miasma of doubt and fear that existed at the time.
I, your reviewer, happen to have been born in Warsaw in 1935, and although I was too young to be aware of what was going on at the time, I have heard stories all my life about what it was like. Nothing that Furst writes detracts from that authenticity.
His plots are interwoven in a believable manner without any questionnable novelist's amazing coincidences to facilitate a connection here and there. I recommend "The Spies of Warsaw" as a real page-turner of a read.

Alan Furst's new novel, The Spies of Warsaw, is a tightly controlled narrative of an approaching war that will be the worst in human history. Mercier, the protagonist, is a French military attache working in 1937 Warsaw. Mercier's real job is to collect data, from whatever source he can, on how the Germans will first attack France. Along the way, he comes into contact with fake countesses, defecting Russians, and turncoat Nazis. He also falls in love with a League of Nations lawyer--their dalliance is consummated in a first class compartment on a train headed for Prague. Furst's triumph as a writer is the way he combines historical detail with cool character evocations in a style that is remarkably nuanced and yet always exciting. He doesn't just write about '30's Europe on the verge of collapse--he creates a world of weariness and panic that somehow seeps into your bones. The Spies of Warsaw is a masterpiece. Hats off to Alan Furst, one of the best writers working today.

Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets

I've read (and reread) all of Alan Furst's "Night Soldier" novels. He draws me in like no other author since Eric Ambler - and I never thought that would happen. If you've been there (and if you have, you know what I mean), Furst will take you back.