Description
Book Synopsis''Complex, intelligent, hugely intriguing - Alan Furst is in a class of his own'' William Boyd
''Furst''s ability to recreate the terrors of espionage is matchless'' Robert Harris
''Furst never stops astounding me'' Tom Hanks
Chosen as one of the 50 Best Modern Crime Novels by Marcel Berlins, crime reviewer, The Times
Bulgaria, 1934. Khristo Stoianev sees his brother kicked to death by a gang of fascist thugs. Taking a risk on the promise of Communism, he flees to Moscow and is trained as an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service. His first mission is to go to Catalonia, where he is soon caught up in the bloody horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin''s purges, Khristo must again take flight, this time to Paris, where he is a small player on the wrong end of a social scene that is simultaneously decadent and doomed.
One of the twentieth century
Trade Review
'Alan Furst's spy fiction is serious, even solemn: a good but never light read' - LITERARY REVIEW
'[Furst's] stories combine keen deductive precision with much deeper, more turbulent and impassioned aspects of character... Mr. Furst... is an incomparable expert at this game' - NEW YORK TIMES
'Furst's tales... are infused with the melancholy romanticism of CASABLANCA, and also a touch of Arthur Koestler's DARKNESS AT NOON' - SCOTSMAN
'Throughout, the author's delight in the process of espionage shines through' - TLS
