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A review by jacki_f
Mission to Paris by Alan Furst
3.0
The story is set in Paris in late 1938. Hitler has appropriated Czechoslovakia and there are fears that he will invade Poland. The French are split between those who feel that he must be stopped and those who want to appease him if it will avoid France being drawn into another war for which it is ill prepared. An Austrian born, American movie star by the name of Fredric Stahl, comes to Paris to shoot a film. Initially he is happy to be in Paris, a city that he lived in many years previously and genuinely loved. Gradually however he becomes aware of the undercurrents of menace in the city. The German Government are keen to take advantage of his Austrian roots for their propaganda purposes and initially the (somewhat naive) Stahl inadvertently plays into their hands. Then he realises that this gives him the opportunity to assist his own Government in collecting information about the Nazis, although he doesn't fully appreciate the danger in which that will place him.
This was very much a book of two halves for me. The first half of the book dragged, to the point where I kept falling asleep when trying to read it at the end of the day. One of Furst's strengths as a writer is the way that he creates an entire world for you, but there is so much irrelevant detail about the movie itself and so many characters get introduced only to disappear again. In the second half of the book, when Stahl starts to get involved in spying for the Americans, the book gets far more involving and genuinely tense. By the end I was loving it - but it took me over 100 pages to get into it.
Furst includes references to events in previous books and a few familiar characters make walk on appearances. This will not affect you if you are not familiar with his previous books, but is a pleasing addition if you are.
Overall I liked the book, but the fact that it took so long to get going was a problem for me.
This was very much a book of two halves for me. The first half of the book dragged, to the point where I kept falling asleep when trying to read it at the end of the day. One of Furst's strengths as a writer is the way that he creates an entire world for you, but there is so much irrelevant detail about the movie itself and so many characters get introduced only to disappear again. In the second half of the book, when Stahl starts to get involved in spying for the Americans, the book gets far more involving and genuinely tense. By the end I was loving it - but it took me over 100 pages to get into it.
Furst includes references to events in previous books and a few familiar characters make walk on appearances. This will not affect you if you are not familiar with his previous books, but is a pleasing addition if you are.
Overall I liked the book, but the fact that it took so long to get going was a problem for me.