Midnight in Europe
On sale
8th October 2015
Price: £9.99
Paris, 1938. Democratic forces are locked in struggle as the shadow of war edges over Europe.
Cristián Ferrar, a handsome Spanish lawyer in Paris, is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces. He agrees, putting his life on the line.
Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies: idealists and gangsters, arms dealers, aristocrats and spies. From libertine nightclubs in Paris to shady bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare – and the heroes and heroines who fought back.
Cristián Ferrar, a handsome Spanish lawyer in Paris, is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces. He agrees, putting his life on the line.
Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies: idealists and gangsters, arms dealers, aristocrats and spies. From libertine nightclubs in Paris to shady bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare – and the heroes and heroines who fought back.
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Reviews
Furst deftly creates a chiaroscuro world, a chessboard Europe half glimpsed through shadow and fog and dominated by the looming threat of fascism. The sombre tone is offset by Furst's delightfully improbably cast of characters, which includes down-at-heel aristocrats, mercenary arms dealers, femmes fatales and star-crossed lovers. Ferrer, our amateur spy is a wonderful creation an idealistic but hopelessly native innocent abroad who understands all to well that he is a very small cog in a vast machine grinding inexorably towards a conflict that will dwarf even the horrors of the Spanish Civil War
Alan Furst's Midnight in Europe unfolds in 1938, during the Spanish Civil war. Cristian, a Spanish lawyer working in Paris, agrees to assist the Republic's arms-buying agency there, and hence meets a cosmopolitan assortment of ambiguous heroes and colourful rogues... Furst devotees will devour it eagerly
Since the publication of Night Soldiers in 1988, Alan Furst has established himself as a uniquely appealing writer of espionage fiction, attracting not only those who know the genre, but also those who hold more literary sensibilities. Like Le Carre, he imbues his thrillers with a compelling air of reality that convinces the reader of their authenticity... The main reason to read Furst, however, is his pitch-perfect period detail. The author evokes time and place with effortless ease... Furst is one of the greatest practitioners of the spy thriller working today. If you've read him before, you'll already have bought the book. If not, you're about to discover a real pleasure
A complexly plotted and smoothly written story
This is another fine addition to his elegant, gripping, interwoven set of novels... Furst tells gallopingly good stories, and Midnight in Europe is one of them
Furst vividly re-creates an era that brought pain and consequence to nearly every civilian in every country... And so it is with Furst's newest novel, "Midnight in Europe." Furst creates great tension between his protaganists' personal imperatives and their missions... I've read every one of [Furst's novels] twice. Each time I get my hands on a new one, I devour it in a single sitting. I can't help it; they're just too much fun to put down. A couple months later, I'll pick it up again and take my time. Like the choucroute garnie and dark beer at Heininger, it's even more fun to savor every morsel
Through multiple novels, Furst has illuminated moments of reluctant courage and desperate love in a world teetering on the edge of destruction. He does so again here, and, as always, he does it exquisitely. . . . Furst is a master of mood, but, above all, he is able to show how the most personal of emotions-love, especially-drives the actions of men and women caught in a time of peril
Featuring some colourful characters, including idealists, gangsters and aristocrats and involving Ferrar in trips to New York, Berlin, Poland, Romania, Istanbul and Odessa, the novel is well paced and captures the mood of the times
This spy thriller set in 1938 from Edgar finalist Furst (Mission to Paris) ... charts the attempts of two part-time arms dealers, Chistián Ferrar and Max de Lyon, to serve the Spanish Republic and its beleaguered army while most of the continent has its eye on Berlin. Every clandestine mission they undertake - a prolonged quest for cannons in Poland, a nifty operation to trick Russia out of field guns and antiaircraft weaponry in Odessa - is fraught with struggle, and the pro-Franco Nazi spy apparatus always seems one step ahead . . . As usual, Furst manages to capture the fragile, itinerant nature of European life during the interwar period, dropping in hints of the horror to come
Furst's novels of WWII and the years immediately before it are becoming something of a genre of their own - a richly enjoyable mix of spy adventures, love stories, thrillers and social histories... the real pleasure comes in simply spending time with Furst's gallery of plausible villains and unlikely heroes
Highly exciting...full of suspense... This novel will keep the new reader engrossed to the very end
No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst, whose gifts for such evocation are on display once more in the suspenseful and sophisticated Midnight in Europe . . . exciting and moving
[Furst] remains at the top of his game. This is another fine addition to his elegant, gripping, interwoven set of novels that will someday form a kaleidoscopic map of European powers forced into desperate alliances as they fight for their lives... Furst tells galloping good stories, and Midnight in Europe is one of them.
The 2013 television adaptation of the WWII thriller The Spies of Warsaw drew a greater audience to Furst's classic spy novels and his latest book won't disappoint them... fast-paced, engaging thriller
Another tense drama of pre-World War II Europe from a master of the period... As usual, Furst manages to hold the reader's rapt attention without blood-and-guts action. Furst owns the dark blanket that covers Europe between the two world wars. His latest is a satisfying, thought-provoking read
Alan Furst's gripping novel is driven by his deceptively straightforward style, which gently piles everyday detail on detail building up little by little until the reader becomes enmeshed in a complex web of international intrigue and machinations right to the very end
Alan Furst's novels have invoked glowing comparisons with Graham Greene for his idiosyncratic recreations of 1930s Europe; Midnight in Europe shows that there is not the slightest diminution in his masterly command
As ever, the setting is thoroughly convincing, the detail impressive, and the atmosphere of doomed romance intoxicating. His writing is sophisticated, nuanced, and surprisingly funny in places, without ever being flashy. Furst is too skilled the storyteller to ever break the spell he casts over the reader for the sake of a clever phrase. No doubt Midnight in Europe will sell by the bucket load, and that's just fine with me
Another tale of desperate bravery from the master of World War II-era thrillers
Acclaimed author Alan Furst expertly unfolds a ripping yarn of derring-do that manages, with no apparent breaking of sweat, to pay homage to his spy thriller-writer heroes (Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Alaister McLean, Dennis Wheatley and, perhaps most resonantly, John le Carre) while simultaneously forging a highly individualistic streak... Furst has been writing - evocatively, intuitively, and with a level of clear-headed knowledge and extensive research... about this pre-war period of time from the late 1980s... If you're familiar with Furst's work you'll know what to expect: old-fashioned yet sophisticated, highly intelligent adventure novels with an underlying cinematic sensibility. If you're not familiar, then perhaps it's time to start?