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kanejim57's review
5.0
This has been my favorite in the series so far.
The end comes quickly but I felt the quickening pace as I approached the end.
The end comes quickly but I felt the quickening pace as I approached the end.
duparker's review
4.0
3.5 Stars. The deliberate use of time and place is key to Fursts books. Here the added grit of Paris in war was a great character. The no win feeling is pervasive as you move through the plot. No one is going to win, even if the narrative is sucessful.
jacki_f's review
4.0
Most of Alan Furst's books can be read in interchangeable order but this one continues Jean Casson's story, picking up shortly after The World At Night finished. It's terrific, one of his best.
joestewart's review
5.0
The writing was good and the plot was reasonably complicated. I liked it a lot!
djmikeylikes's review
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
jefecarpenter's review
3.0
This is a continuation of The World at Night, (Night Soldiers #4) although the publisher doesn't mention that anywhere, which is a bit confounding because it only works if you have the momentum of that opening act to carry you through the long, almost tedious, slog in this book that drives home the point about the endless struggle, the unrelenting sacrifices of existence in Occupied France. It's still addictive, what Furst has conveyed, so much so that I feel let down at the ending to see that it just dribbles off without a third book to lift you to a finale.
blevins's review
4.0
My second or third book by the WW2 era specialist Furst that sees him drenching another story in the shady universe of spies, French resistance fighters, Nazis, regular French citizens and those willing and unwilling to get their hands dirty in 1940s Paris. Swamped in atmosphere, intrigue, danger and suspense--this is classy stuff from Furst.
majkia's review
4.0
Alan Furst's series is about normal, everyday people stuck in the middle of Hell, when Europe goes to war. Some of them survive, some don't. Some find a way to work in the resistance, some try to escape, some help with that.
He presents the situation, not idealized with brave, beautiful people who are incredible spies, but instead as people who barely manage to find ways to survive, and do what little they can to help the cause of defeating Hitler. Fear is always present and one never knows who is knocking on your door, or who will be knocking it down.
He presents the situation, not idealized with brave, beautiful people who are incredible spies, but instead as people who barely manage to find ways to survive, and do what little they can to help the cause of defeating Hitler. Fear is always present and one never knows who is knocking on your door, or who will be knocking it down.
ricparks's review against another edition
3.0
Evocative with wonderful detail but a bit too sedate for me.
duffypratt's review against another edition
4.0
This is a fine installment in the Night Soldiers series. It focuses on Jean Casson, who was the central character in The World at Night. I liked this book better than it's predecessor, but I think the two could have worked well as a single novel. Casson is a former film producer, more or less without ideology, who gets lured/pulled into the French resistance.
In this book, he is trying to re-establish some kind of a life for himself, and does this by becoming an intermediary between the DeGaulle resistance and the more active, and brutal Communist resistance. The factions hate each other almost as much as they hate Hitler, and the chance of betrayals or reprisals is extremely high.
In Furst's world, it is often ambiguous whether a minor event is simply that, or something more sinister. As a result, his books often feel a little disjointed and even plotless. This is a feature, not a bug. That uncertainty about everything is a crucial part of his world, and one of the chief things that leads to the atmosphere of danger and foreboding. That said, this is one of the more tightly plotted of his books, if only because his characterizations here are a bit stronger than they have been in some other books, especially with the more minor characters.
It's also cool the way Furst has his characters doing things that seem relatively minor in the context of WWII, but still gives you a sense of their importance. Casson, who is more or less a nobody, tries to sabotage some oil transports on the Seine, which will be headed to North Africa to fuel Rommel's tanks. If he succeeds, it might slow down deliveries for a few weeks or a month, which seems really small in the context of the war, but still noble and vital to the war effort.
As always, the writing is clean and strong on atmosphere. In some ways, I think that World at Night and this book might be the best introduction to Furst.
In this book, he is trying to re-establish some kind of a life for himself, and does this by becoming an intermediary between the DeGaulle resistance and the more active, and brutal Communist resistance. The factions hate each other almost as much as they hate Hitler, and the chance of betrayals or reprisals is extremely high.
In Furst's world, it is often ambiguous whether a minor event is simply that, or something more sinister. As a result, his books often feel a little disjointed and even plotless. This is a feature, not a bug. That uncertainty about everything is a crucial part of his world, and one of the chief things that leads to the atmosphere of danger and foreboding. That said, this is one of the more tightly plotted of his books, if only because his characterizations here are a bit stronger than they have been in some other books, especially with the more minor characters.
It's also cool the way Furst has his characters doing things that seem relatively minor in the context of WWII, but still gives you a sense of their importance. Casson, who is more or less a nobody, tries to sabotage some oil transports on the Seine, which will be headed to North Africa to fuel Rommel's tanks. If he succeeds, it might slow down deliveries for a few weeks or a month, which seems really small in the context of the war, but still noble and vital to the war effort.
As always, the writing is clean and strong on atmosphere. In some ways, I think that World at Night and this book might be the best introduction to Furst.