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A review by barts_books
Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
4.0
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.