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sarahlisbeth84's review against another edition
3.0
Not my favorite Furst. I couldn't seem to get into it like I do his others and had a hard time following what it was that the "night soldiers" were trying to accomplish.
duffypratt's review against another edition
3.0
Oil is the blood of victory. War has become mechanized. Stop the tanks and trucks from rolling, and you effectively cripple an army and end a war. During WW2, about 60% of German oil supply came from Romania. It got shipped to Germany by tankers navigating the Danube. This book is about a covert effort to interdict the German oil.
At one point in the book, one of the characters says that the British could stop the oil any time, if they really wanted. Their bombers were only six hours away, and they could use them to take out the oil fields. The reason they didn't, according to this character, was Money. Wars come and go, but the monied interests remain. This idea bothered me, so I did a little bit of research about it. It turns out that the British didn't ever try to bomb the oil fields. There were two American raids on the fields, both of them after the events of this book, which takes place before the Americans got into the war, and just before the German invasion of Russia.
The second of the American raids used about 120 bombers. They adopted a radical strategy for the raid, coming in at the target at extremely low altitude - tree top level as some people called it, though it must have been higher than that. The theory was that this would increase the accuracy of the bombing, and might reduce some of the losses from the extreme anti-aircraft defense at the fields. About 1/3 of the bombers were shot down in the raid, and it temporarily reduced supplies from the fields by about 1/3. The raid was considered a major success at the time.
The upshot of my research is I don't know what to make of the failure of the British to conduct such a raid earlier. It sounds like the raid was enormously difficult, even when we had greater air superiority. And we didn't follow up the one raid with others. So my guess is that there were other reasons than Money for not carrying out the raid. And what that means is that the character, who was probably a populist/socialist, was speaking out of his own prejudice, and not simply acting as a mouthpiece for Furst (as I had assumed).
Anyway, attacks on the fields being impractical, the scheme involves sabotaging the Danube to stop or slow down the tanker traffic. That's the objective of the main character, an emigre Russian writer who now lives without a country, but decides that he has to do something to fight fascism. Even though the objective is clear, the means are alway hazy. Everything in Furst's world is covered in shadow. There are betrayals, and betrayals on top of the betrayals, and its hard or basically impossible to figure out who is behind them. And its also very much beside the point.
Rather, the focus is on the efforts of Serebin. He's been stripped of pretty much every attachment he has in the world. And he's left clinging to an idea that perhaps he can do something to hamper the Nazi's. In some ways he's doing this because, without this goal, he has nothing left at all. The atmosphere, as with Furst's other books, is fantastic. Except for the end, the book lacks any action at all. Rather, this world of espionage seems to leap from the dull and plodding, to cataclysm, and then settles back into dull. That doesn't mean the book is boring. What I mean is that the way that Serebin goes about achieving his goal is mostly uneventful, until something shocking or terrifying comes into play. It's driven by the character himself, and not by action.
The only thing I really have to fault Furst with is his consistency. In a few months I will be hard pressed to distinguish this book from the others I've read. They are all very much of a piece. The main characters seem more similar to me than different. The world is grey and shadowy. There's no one and nothing to trust. And I like all of this very much, and yet this time I found myself hoping for just a bit more. Overall, I was very satisfied with this book, but not blown away.
At one point in the book, one of the characters says that the British could stop the oil any time, if they really wanted. Their bombers were only six hours away, and they could use them to take out the oil fields. The reason they didn't, according to this character, was Money. Wars come and go, but the monied interests remain. This idea bothered me, so I did a little bit of research about it. It turns out that the British didn't ever try to bomb the oil fields. There were two American raids on the fields, both of them after the events of this book, which takes place before the Americans got into the war, and just before the German invasion of Russia.
The second of the American raids used about 120 bombers. They adopted a radical strategy for the raid, coming in at the target at extremely low altitude - tree top level as some people called it, though it must have been higher than that. The theory was that this would increase the accuracy of the bombing, and might reduce some of the losses from the extreme anti-aircraft defense at the fields. About 1/3 of the bombers were shot down in the raid, and it temporarily reduced supplies from the fields by about 1/3. The raid was considered a major success at the time.
The upshot of my research is I don't know what to make of the failure of the British to conduct such a raid earlier. It sounds like the raid was enormously difficult, even when we had greater air superiority. And we didn't follow up the one raid with others. So my guess is that there were other reasons than Money for not carrying out the raid. And what that means is that the character, who was probably a populist/socialist, was speaking out of his own prejudice, and not simply acting as a mouthpiece for Furst (as I had assumed).
Anyway, attacks on the fields being impractical, the scheme involves sabotaging the Danube to stop or slow down the tanker traffic. That's the objective of the main character, an emigre Russian writer who now lives without a country, but decides that he has to do something to fight fascism. Even though the objective is clear, the means are alway hazy. Everything in Furst's world is covered in shadow. There are betrayals, and betrayals on top of the betrayals, and its hard or basically impossible to figure out who is behind them. And its also very much beside the point.
Rather, the focus is on the efforts of Serebin. He's been stripped of pretty much every attachment he has in the world. And he's left clinging to an idea that perhaps he can do something to hamper the Nazi's. In some ways he's doing this because, without this goal, he has nothing left at all. The atmosphere, as with Furst's other books, is fantastic. Except for the end, the book lacks any action at all. Rather, this world of espionage seems to leap from the dull and plodding, to cataclysm, and then settles back into dull. That doesn't mean the book is boring. What I mean is that the way that Serebin goes about achieving his goal is mostly uneventful, until something shocking or terrifying comes into play. It's driven by the character himself, and not by action.
The only thing I really have to fault Furst with is his consistency. In a few months I will be hard pressed to distinguish this book from the others I've read. They are all very much of a piece. The main characters seem more similar to me than different. The world is grey and shadowy. There's no one and nothing to trust. And I like all of this very much, and yet this time I found myself hoping for just a bit more. Overall, I was very satisfied with this book, but not blown away.
davidjeri60's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
5.0
jakewritesbooks's review
3.0
(3.5) I had an itch to read an Alan Furst novel and I scratched it with this one because it was the only one available at three different used book stores. It's no better or worse than any other in the Night Soldiers series, the only reason I gave it three stars was that I hoped it would be different otherwise. When I get the need to read another in the series, I'll scratch the itch again but I just can't help feeling that Furst's books should be more enjoyable than they actually are.
larryschwartz's review against another edition
Have I mentioned before that I really like Alan Furst's books? They are dark and mysterious and they take me to places and times that I haven't been before.
writerlibrarian's review against another edition
3.0
In Blood of Victory which is in fact oil, petrol from Roumania that the Germans need to continue the war, we follow Russian émigré I. A.Serebin first steps into the spy world.
From Istanbul, to Paris to Bucharest, back in Paris, into Belgrade this is a great game to stall the Germans' access to oil until the Americans come into the war.
We are in early 1941. Furst sets the pieces and you enjoy watching the chess game even if you know how it ends. Furst succeeds in merging historical figures and events with his fictional characters. Good WW2 spy fiction. More introverted than action paced this one, probably due to the personality of the lead character, Serebin is a poet, Russian with the moods to match. The last chapter is more action and does keep you on the edge of your seat and turning the pages. A very solid 3 1/2 stars.
From Istanbul, to Paris to Bucharest, back in Paris, into Belgrade this is a great game to stall the Germans' access to oil until the Americans come into the war.
We are in early 1941. Furst sets the pieces and you enjoy watching the chess game even if you know how it ends. Furst succeeds in merging historical figures and events with his fictional characters. Good WW2 spy fiction. More introverted than action paced this one, probably due to the personality of the lead character, Serebin is a poet, Russian with the moods to match. The last chapter is more action and does keep you on the edge of your seat and turning the pages. A very solid 3 1/2 stars.
nkmeyers's review against another edition
3.0
So many threads picked up and seemingly dropped or left untwined. So many exit visas left unstamped. Women, but not so many that you can't count 'em. Weapons and bad guys aplenty. Ultimately unsatisfying for me but fiction need not always satisfy . . . maybe it can also introduce, briefly entertain, or conjure the unknowable past?
darwin8u's review
4.0
'Blood of Victory' is an oblique sequel to 'Kingdom of Shadows' and the seventh novel in Furst's 'Night Soldiers' series. This novel, however, is set more in Romania and deals with the intrigue around the travels of Ilya Serebin a Russian emigre who runs a organization for Russian exiles and gets caught up in trying to slow Hitler's march into Romania and eventually, inevitably Russia. It is a story about Romanian oil, Hitler's dark creep and the shadows and hard-boiled misfits that wander around, without a home, trying to stop him.
I don't know if it just sepia-fatigue but Furst's novels just aren't hitting me as hard as they once did. 'Blood of Victory' was better written than his last novel, and Furst's plots and characters are still innovative, but just not brilliant. I know I'm asking a lot, and perhaps I'm just weary of the cinematic, hard-boiled schtick. I might need to put Furst to rest for a bit. He is too good a genre writer to give up on, but I might have just over-dosed on the Furst world's war.
I don't know if it just sepia-fatigue but Furst's novels just aren't hitting me as hard as they once did. 'Blood of Victory' was better written than his last novel, and Furst's plots and characters are still innovative, but just not brilliant. I know I'm asking a lot, and perhaps I'm just weary of the cinematic, hard-boiled schtick. I might need to put Furst to rest for a bit. He is too good a genre writer to give up on, but I might have just over-dosed on the Furst world's war.
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