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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Something I read in Balkan Ghosts piqued my interest in Salonika/Thessaloniki: during World War II, the Nazis sent 94% of the Jews who lived in this ancient city to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Between that heartbreaking fact, and Salonika's larger history as a crossroads of empire--Byzantine and Ottoman, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Greek--I wanted to read more. And, as he tends to do, Alan Furst delivered. Sure, he's got a formula he rarely deviates from (a good-hearted everyman with a few special talents woos the ladies and solves problems large and small during the run-up to the Nazi occupation of X,Y, or Z nation) but his writing is so elegant and rich I hardly minded the repetition. A cracking thriller; sympathetic characters; a culture, time and place brought to life; thanks to Furst, I got to inhabit Salonika for a few hours.
Another excellent WWII noir from Alan Furst--it is Casablanca, but in Salonika 1940, with neutral Turkey, Greece fending off the Italians (and sure the Nazis will arrive to bail out Mussolini), Yugoslavia ripe for a coup and the Romanians not sure they want to be fascist-fascists, starring a stalwart Greek policeman and a makeshift cast of resistance characters.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Great story with a good focus on normal feeling people in an intense and pressured setting. A big fan of the author generally, but this one was one of my favorites.
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Slow to start but a strong finish. Wonderful story of that time and its atrocities. Inspiring efforts by characters to save the one s they could.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Not bad, I liked mission to Paris more. I am still all for the anti fascist spy books. He’s not Le Carre though.
Set in Salonika, Greece during the early years of World War 2, this is the story of a police official called Costa Zannis who gets involved in helping Jews to escape from Germany through Greece into Turkey. There are also a number of sub-plots - a couple of which end inconclusively - and a semi-plausible romance. There are times that the narrative feels disjointed or bitsy. Nevertheless the reader's attention is held because the characters are so rich and the setting (both geographically and historically) are so interesting, with an undercurrent of menace throughout. Greece is on the cusp of invasion and tensions are high.
This is my first Alan Furst novel. I thought it was similar in style to Philip Kerr's excellent Bernie Gunther series and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This is my first Alan Furst novel. I thought it was similar in style to Philip Kerr's excellent Bernie Gunther series and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Elegant way to learn a little about Greece in the Second World War. Structured in a low-key, episodic style, this never picks up into an intricate thrill ride of a spy story, but I enjoyed the protagonist Zannis and his mountain sheep dog Melissa. Zannis is a 'fixer' in the city of Salonika, the guy on the police department who is called to handle the most delicate problems with discretion and the help of a large number of contacts, a network of sorts.
If I could offer one criticism of this book then its brevity. Furst creates his most engaging, likeable character in the most atmospheric early 40's Balkan setting but we only get sub-300 pages and numerous intriguing plots are left unresolved. Finally he then leaves his fate on an absolute knife-edge and to date there is no sequel. Damn you Alan, damn you!
Spies of the Balkans is 40's film noir in text. You can almost picture the scenes in grainy black and white as Thessaloniki police detective Costa Zannis deftly shifts his way through an extremely fluid and dangerous geo-political picture following a chance 4am encounter with a German spy.
As stated above Zannis is a marvellous character. In love with this colossal sheep dog, his family, his city, his job and lets be honest, numerous ladies. He is both Oskar Schindler, helping German-Jews escape Berlin in a convoluted Underground railroad-esque system, and British Agent, assisting his ex-girlfriend's Oxbridge colleagues in increasingly dangerous covert missions.
This is one of the finest additions to Alan Furst's Night Solider series.
4.5 stars.
Spies of the Balkans is 40's film noir in text. You can almost picture the scenes in grainy black and white as Thessaloniki police detective Costa Zannis deftly shifts his way through an extremely fluid and dangerous geo-political picture following a chance 4am encounter with a German spy.
As stated above Zannis is a marvellous character. In love with this colossal sheep dog, his family, his city, his job and lets be honest, numerous ladies. He is both Oskar Schindler, helping German-Jews escape Berlin in a convoluted Underground railroad-esque system, and British Agent, assisting his ex-girlfriend's Oxbridge colleagues in increasingly dangerous covert missions.
This is one of the finest additions to Alan Furst's Night Solider series.
4.5 stars.
His human and capable protagonist seems a stock character, used in his other books but I still found myself caring for what happened to him. Quick easier reading and at times effortlessly suave.