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A review by jefecarpenter
Blood of Victory by Alan Furst
5.0
A beautiful story where for much of the book you don't feel you're in an espionage thriller as much as living in a dark age, much as we are now, where, if you are progressive, you can't sit idly and just watch it; you are drawn into doing something. In this case, it is WWII, and it becomes an intricate network of players with many unique talents and world-views, with the tools to execute amazing things, but they are all living in oppression, dangerous times, and there's the "blues" engendered by that, just as much as the original blues in the American south under slavery. Along with that comes a sense of honor, and dignity, that have been hard to find in our world these past few years (-2021) and a beautifully understated love affair that grows deeper now, as the story passes into memory.
It seems to me that Alan Furst is sort of like the Patrick O'Brian of WWII in eastern Europe. O'Brian wrote the reader right into the day-to-day experience of the British Navy in the Napoleonic Wars but his over-arching achievement was telling deep stories of character and relationships, and often taking you far from the waves. I think Furst's "Blood of Victory" is like O'Brian's "The Surgeon's Mate" where the great part of the story takes place inside the back-channels of aristocracy in Paris, and inside a prison much like the Bastille, and a lot of time is spent with intricate details of life devoid of action.
It seems to me that Alan Furst is sort of like the Patrick O'Brian of WWII in eastern Europe. O'Brian wrote the reader right into the day-to-day experience of the British Navy in the Napoleonic Wars but his over-arching achievement was telling deep stories of character and relationships, and often taking you far from the waves. I think Furst's "Blood of Victory" is like O'Brian's "The Surgeon's Mate" where the great part of the story takes place inside the back-channels of aristocracy in Paris, and inside a prison much like the Bastille, and a lot of time is spent with intricate details of life devoid of action.