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A review by left_coast_justin
Dark Star by Alan Furst
As usual with Furst's books, I learned quite a bit about European history of the 20th century -- he sneaks quite a bit of learning into his novels, and for this I am grateful.
I kept falling asleep while reading for this, but don't blame the author or the story -- it says much more about the state of my life in Oct. 2020 than it does about the book. So unfortunately there was a lot of plot development in the first half of the book that I only poorly retained, making the second half a little hard for me to get into.
I will refrain from assigning a star rating unless I get around to reading this again. I'm pretty sure that, under normal circumstances, I'd have enjoyed it quite a bit. (But with the caution that, like all spy novels with any hint of character development, people like to compare it to LeCarre, which simply isn't credible. Compare the love affairs -- I believe there were three -- of this protagonist compared with the agony of LeCarre's hero Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager, and they really aren't playing in the same stadium.)
I kept falling asleep while reading for this, but don't blame the author or the story -- it says much more about the state of my life in Oct. 2020 than it does about the book. So unfortunately there was a lot of plot development in the first half of the book that I only poorly retained, making the second half a little hard for me to get into.
I will refrain from assigning a star rating unless I get around to reading this again. I'm pretty sure that, under normal circumstances, I'd have enjoyed it quite a bit. (But with the caution that, like all spy novels with any hint of character development, people like to compare it to LeCarre, which simply isn't credible. Compare the love affairs -- I believe there were three -- of this protagonist compared with the agony of LeCarre's hero Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager, and they really aren't playing in the same stadium.)