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A review by duffypratt
Red Gold by Alan Furst
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.