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The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

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The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel

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An autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers’ bar in the city’s factory district, he will meet with the military attaché from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins The Spies of Warsaw, the brilliant new novel by Alan Furst, lauded by The New York Times as “America’s preeminent spy novelist.”

War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations.

Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters–Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence; the mysterious and sophisticated Dr. Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and Mercier’s brutal and vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. And there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.

The Houston Chronicle has described Furst as “the greatest living writer of espionage fiction.” The Spies of Warsaw is his finest novel to date–the history precise, the writing evocative and powerful, more a novel about spies than a spy novel, exciting, atmospheric, erotic, and impossible to put down.

“As close to heaven as popular fiction can get.”
–Los Angeles Times, about The Foreign Correspondent

“What gleams on the surface in Furst’s books is his vivid, precise evocation of mood, time, place, a letter-perfect re-creation of the quotidian details of World War II Europe that wraps around us like the rich fug of a wartime railway station.”
–Time

“A rich, deeply moving novel of suspense that is equal parts espionage thriller, European history and love story.”
–Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times, about Dark Star

“Some books you read. Others you live. They seep into your dreams and haunt your waking hours until eventually they seem the stuff of memory and experience. Such are the novels of Alan Furst, who uses the shadowy world of espionage to illuminate history and politics with immediacy.”
–Nancy Pate, Orlando Sentinel

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Product Details

Author:	Alan Furst
Hardcover:	288 pages
Publisher:	Random House
Publication Date:	June 03, 2008
Language:	English
ISBN:	1400066026
Product Length:	6.42 inches
Product Width:	1.01 inches
Product Height:	9.56 inches
Product Weight:	1.08 pounds
Package Length:	9.2 inches
Package Width:	6.0 inches
Package Height:	1.1 inches
Package Weight:	1.25 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 117 reviews

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Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 4.0

( 117 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

174 of 180 found the following review helpful:

Before the Great Storm Breaks .... Jun 08, 2008 By Marco Antonio Abarca
It is the Autumn of 1937 and a European War is on the horizon. The German people are bitter about their defeat during the First World War and Adolph Hitler is promising them revenge. Europe will soon be plunged into war and the French Military Intelligence Service is hard at work trying to devine German War Plans. In Warsaw, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier is the new French Army Attache to Poland. His official job is to promote good relations between the French and Polish Army Staffs. His real job is to gather military intelligence from any source he can mine.

Alan Furst has made his career in espionage novels. His haunts are the more obscure European countries and his heroes are the average, working spies. "The Spies of Warsaw" fits his pattern. There are no master spies or high level conspiracies. Just an ordinary military attache at work in the charged atmosphere of pre-war Poland.

This is Alan Furst's tenth espionage novel and "Spies of Warsaw" is one his better books. He is a very strong writer who spends a lot of time on historical research. Furst fills this novel with all the rich details that allows him to recreate Warsaw in the late 1930's.

The greatest writer of these types of espionage tales is the remarkable English writer, Eric Ambler. He wrote great espionage novels in the late 1930's during the rise of facism in Europe. Through his many fine novels, Alan Furst has become the inheritor of Eric Ambler's legacy. "The Spies of Warsaw" is another great addition to Furst's body of work. Highly recommended.

49 of 51 found the following review helpful:

Fighting Nazis and Petain While Reading Simenon and Stendhal Jun 14, 2008 By Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life"
Great news has arrived for those fans of Alan Furst who thought he mailed in his last work, The Foreign Correspondent: A Novel. The master of the historical spy novel is back at the top of his game in The Spies of Warsaw. Furst centers his story in Warsaw, the scene of some his best writing and the return is triumphal. The typical Furst protagonist is the ordinary man of above-average principles, thrust by accident of history into the dangerous interstices of inter-war Europe. This time, however, our man is one Jean-Francois Mercier, decorated hero of the Great War and wounded veteran of the Polish victory in the 1920 Battle of Warsaw - the Miracle at the Vistula - and new military attaché at the French embassy and a professional spook.

Mercier runs an agent who works as engineer in an armaments company Germany, but who also develops a taste for Warsaw honey and promptly falls into the honey trap. By indirect route that leads to a one-sided vendetta against Mercier of which he is the unknowing target. Mercier falls in lust early in the book, but later finds himself fully in love while he continues to troll for secrets and potential agents. His work leads him into several adventures in which the risks of failure range from embarrassing to deadly.

Furst brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of pre-war days - the end of happiness and hope. Mercier's attempts for even a brief mental respite from the looming NAZI threat are futile; the reminders everywhere. His description of the formal dining room at a Warsaw party in the city's finest hotel puts the reader in the room: the "sheen of the damask tablecloth, the heavy silver, and the gold-rimmed china glowed in the light of a dozen candelabra".

Details to delight. A trip to Paris includes the now-obligatory Furstian visit to Brasserie Heininger and a peak at the infamous bullet hole in the mirror of Table 14. We learn that Mercier is a fan of Georges Simenon and Stendhal.

Mercier struggles to help France resist the NAZI's in the coming war that palpably hangs over Europe and every page in the book. As he learns, however, there are those in France who view Soviet Russia as the true enemy and Nazi Germany as potential allies. Moreover, intelligence that questions accepted wisdom, in this case of Marshal Petain and the ruling clique in the military, is seldom welcome. The books powerful ending leaves the reader angry and impotent. Highest recommendation.

52 of 56 found the following review helpful:

"What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs?" Jun 09, 2008 By Leonard Fleisig "Len"
John LeCarre, "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold"

As its title suggests, there are more than a few spies in Alan Furst's latest novel "The Spies of Warsaw." None of them are priests, none are saints and none strive for martyrdom. What we find are a willing and unwilling collection of French, Polish, German, and Russian operatives in pre-WWII Poland. The result is a typically good Furst novel, one rich in atmospherics and character development but free of comic-book style heroics and world-saving, death-defying stunts or car chases.

Set in Warsaw, the character at the center of "The Spies of Warsaw" is Colonel Mercier. A career soldier and veteran of The Great War, Mercier is France's Military Attaché to Poland. It is 1937 and Mercier, not unlike the professional diplomats, military figures, and other assorted characters that he deals with, is aware that another war is not very far away. Mercier's real job function is that of chief intelligence officer. As the story opens he is simply gathering information on German armament programs. As the story progresses Mercier focuses on German tank building, strategy, and deployment.

Furst comes from a line of writers that can be traced back to both Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. Like Ambler (and unlike LeCarre for example) Furst often takes an unassuming, or unwitting civilian and immerses him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe. Furst's strong point has always been how he sets the scene. His atmospherics are tremendous. His descriptions of the streets of Warsaw, Berlin or Paris and the atmosphere of those cities reek of authenticity. Similarly, Furst has a keen eye for the inner life of his protagonists. Almost invariably Furst manages to convey a real sense of how those protagonists think and feel. Both of these elements of his writing generally dominate his plotting and are primarily responsible for getting the reader to turn to the next page. This is certainly the case with Spies of Warsaw. The plot, such as it is, really isn't a plot in the traditional sense, where after the first few chapters you have some central `goal' to grab a hold of. Rather, what we have here is a linear and (seemingly) realistically drawn story of a French intelligence officer and the people he interacts with in the months leading up to WWII. Mercier isn't searching for the Holy Grail or seeking to head off an assassination. Rather, he is tasked with gathering information even when he isn't quite sure exactly what information he needs or how to analyze the information he does receive. Similarly, the book did not really build to a real climax. The book ended more with a knowing sigh than with a bang. Everyone reading Furst will know the fate of Poland in 1939. Some may find that a bit disappointing. However, as readers of Furst's books already know his novels strive for authenticity. In much of life, particularly in the era Furst writes about, storybook endings or dramatic endings are more the exception than the rule. Everyone will know that the French High Command had a very strong idea as to how and where the war would start. They also had a very strong, an unassailable notion as to how best to defend France. It is no spoiler to realize how wrongly held that notion was. Furst, works with an outcome known to his readers and keeps that outcome in mind as he tells a story.

"The Spies of Warsaw" kept me engaged from the opening chapter. Recommended. L. Fleisig

52 of 60 found the following review helpful:

Better than the last two, but... Jul 08, 2008 By Don Graeter "dgraeter"
I'm a long time Furst reader and big fan of his works prior to the last few. Spies of Warsaw is much better than the last two--The Foreign Correspondent and Dark Voyage...the former was hum drum and the latter just plain mediocre. Despite this fact, I can only give two stars here.

Other than "Correspondent" and "Voyage," Furst's espionage works of Europe on the eve of or during WWII are superbly written. One is gripped by the plot, enamored of the characters, and engrossed in the subtle, but real, suspense fearing the appearance of the Gestapo, NKVD, etc.

Spies of Warsaw is as good as Furst's best in creating likeable, believeable characters about whom the reader really cares...to me, the ultimate testament to excellent and enjoyable fiction. Our hero and heroine here, Mercier and Anna, are as good as his very best amorous pairs of past works...say Jean Casson and Citrine of the excellent The World at Night, set in occupied Paris.

Yes, this one was more "romantic" ("sexual," perhaps?) than most of the others. But it was beautifully done. If you have ever had the wonderful experience of an overnight trip on The Orient Express, The Royal Scotsman, etc. you will truly enjoy Mercier and Anna's encounter on the train.

So, why do I praise Furst as finally getting his act back together after a couple of subpar efforts and then rate it only two stars? There is the continuing problem that the book leaves you hanging in mid story at the end, ending abruptly with no warning in the narrative. Like The Polish Officer and The World at Night, Spies just ends. Nothing is resolved, the fate of the characters is in limbo, etc.

The "book" is only about 250 pages (multiple blank pages of padding between chapters, etc.) At 350 to 375 pages, like Dark Star and Night Soldiers, Furst's best works because he actually finished the story, this would be a truly great historical spy novel with well done romance to boot. It would also be fine as is, if Furst would pick up the story and the characters in a subsequent work.

We know, however, that Furst will never resurrect these characters again. In the last paragraph of the book, in just four sentences, he tells us what happens to our heroine and hero over the next six or seven years and the entire course of WWII! That was worse than the non-ending endings of his other incomplete works.

Is Furst getting too commercial, too sloppy, too much into "the life" now that he is a success, does he think he's Hemingway? Who knows. What we know we can expect from him now, at best, is a well written, engrossing story which will end abruptly leaving the reader very disappointed, even angry, at having had him do this to us again. A well written, but incomplete story which leaves me angry at the end doesn't get more than two stars from me.

For my money, read Dark Star and Night Soldiers and then move to another author who writes in this genre. If Furst can put forth the effort to develop a work of 350 pages or so, I'll bite again. But not before.

21 of 22 found the following review helpful:

One of Furst's Best Jun 06, 2008 By Bruce Trinque
1937. A German engineer working for a military contractor. A Polish countess who probably is not a countess. The French military attache. Welome to Alan Furst country. "The Spies of Warsaw" is yet another in Furst's cycle of novels set in the 1930s and WW2, dealing with spies and the shadow world. Reading a Furst novel is, in the best sense, like watching a classic black-and-white movie with a plot by Eric Ambler.

Alan Furst's plots are more John leCarre than Ian Fleming, but there is no shortage of desperate action and tense drama in "The Spies of Warsaw", combined with some very real-world espionage activity that could have come straight from the files of any spy agency. The central character, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier is a decorated veteran of the First World War who discovers a real talent and genuine passion for the war of espionage. And there is the usual supporting cast of shadowy characters living on the knife's edge. And of course -- as any Alan Furst reader will expect -- there is a visit to the Brasserie Heininger and its famous Table 14.

I bought a copy of the novel early this afternoon, and read it straight through to its conclusion in a marathon reading session. "The Spies of Warsaw" is one of Alan Furst's best, and that is saying something. It reminded me, in a very good way, of Furst's "The Polish Officer", perhaps my favorite of the entire cycle.

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