The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

I thought that this book was very realistic. It described the kind of people who were very influential in helping the Allies win the war. Alan Furst is definitely an expert in this type of genre.

This book falls well short of Night Soldiers, Dark Star and Polish Officer. The storyline in Spies of Warsaw is weak and lacks suspense. I miss the cat-and-mouse feints of Furst's earlier works.

Alan Furst has a rare and amazing talent that enables a reader to experience the locations in the book with all the senses. His writing is compact, yet his economy of words only increases the sense of being there. I have been to the Brasserie Heininger many times with many different characters. I have smelled the cigarette smoke and I have heard the raucous laughter. I have marveled at the bullet hole in the mirror behind table 14 and have enjoyed several meals, all courtesy of this gifted author. And as always I leave that fine establishment as I leave all of his novels; hungry for more and looking forward to my next visit.

Start with any of his books and read them in any order. You will find yourself returning to familiar places with new people, and occasionally you'll bump into those people again in another story. Such is the joy of reading Furst. It's like being on the A-List in late 1930's Europe. You're always in the middle of the excitement with the most interesting people.

Alan Furst is one of the most under rated authors writing today. He is a master of the historical thriller, and his books paint a disturbing, and all too lifelike picture, of a world on the verge of a world war. Furst's lastest book, "The Spies of Warsaw," takes place in and around Warsaw and Central Europe in 1937, two years before Hitler actually launches the world into war. Nevertheless the storm clouds are already menacing, and Furst creates an unlikely spy in the person of a French embassy military attache officer, Jean-Francois Mercier. After loosing an informant, Mercier is recruited to find out more about Hitler's planned attack on France, and his developing armored warfare capabilities. In the midst of this mission, Mercier is approached by Russian spies, falls in love, suceeds in his quest only to be rebuffed by the very people who emply him, and is hunted down by a revengeful SS agent. All of it brillliantly constructed, brilliantly executed, and wonderfully evocative. Furst is a master at what he does - and one can only wish he was more prolific in his output

I'm a long time Furst reader and big fan of his works prior to the last few. Spies of Warsaw is much better than the last two--The Foreign Correspondent and Dark Voyage...the former was hum drum and the latter just plain mediocre. Despite this fact, I can only give two stars here.

Other than "Correspondent" and "Voyage," Furst's espionage works of Europe on the eve of or during WWII are superbly written. One is gripped by the plot, enamored of the characters, and engrossed in the subtle, but real, suspense fearing the appearance of the Gestapo, NKVD, etc.

Spies of Warsaw is as good as Furst's best in creating likeable, believeable characters about whom the reader really cares...to me, the ultimate testament to excellent and enjoyable fiction. Our hero and heroine here, Mercier and Anna, are as good as his very best amorous pairs of past works...say Jean Casson and Citrine of the excellent The World at Night, set in occupied Paris.

Yes, this one was more "romantic" ("sexual," perhaps?) than most of the others. But it was beautifully done. If you have ever had the wonderful experience of an overnight trip on The Orient Express, The Royal Scotsman, etc. you will truly enjoy Mercier and Anna's encounter on the train.

So, why do I praise Furst as finally getting his act back together after a couple of subpar efforts and then rate it only two stars? There is the continuing problem that the book leaves you hanging in mid story at the end, ending abruptly with no warning in the narrative. Like The Polish Officer and The World at Night, Spies just ends. Nothing is resolved, the fate of the characters is in limbo, etc.

The "book" is only about 250 pages (multiple blank pages of padding between chapters, etc.) At 350 to 375 pages, like Dark Star and Night Soldiers, Furst's best works because he actually finished the story, this would be a truly great historical spy novel with well done romance to boot. It would also be fine as is, if Furst would pick up the story and the characters in a subsequent work.

We know, however, that Furst will never resurrect these characters again. In the last paragraph of the book, in just four sentences, he tells us what happens to our heroine and hero over the next six or seven years and the entire course of WWII! That was worse than the non-ending endings of his other incomplete works.

Is Furst getting too commercial, too sloppy, too much into "the life" now that he is a success, does he think he's Hemingway? Who knows. What we know we can expect from him now, at best, is a well written, engrossing story which will end abruptly leaving the reader very disappointed, even angry, at having had him do this to us again. A well written, but incomplete story which leaves me angry at the end doesn't get more than two stars from me.

For my money, read Dark Star and Night Soldiers and then move to another author who writes in this genre. If Furst can put forth the effort to develop a work of 350 pages or so, I'll bite again. But not before.