THE SPIES OF WARSAW
Alan Furst
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, with war coming to Europe, and French and German operatives 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 in to 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, amidst an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters - Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence, last seen in Furst's THE POLISH OFFICER; the mysterious and sophisticated Doctor 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.
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About Alan Furst
Reviews for THE SPIES OF WARSAW
Observer
Furst's intelligent thriller, reeking with the doomed atmosphere of pre-war Poland...bristles with tension
Daily Mail
[Furst's] stories combine keen deductive precision with much deeper, more turbulent and impassioned aspects of character... Mr Furst... is an incomparable expert at this game
New York Times
Furst's tales... are infused with the melancholy romanticism of Casablanca, and also a touch of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon
The Scotsman
Excellent spy thriller... so elegant and genteel - beautifully written... your heart will be pounding with tension
Guardian
Alongside... is a love story that is told in such a lyrical fashion that it becomes enthralling... I would recommend this novel without reservation
Irish Times
Furst draws a wonderfully convincing picture of a continent on the verge of destruction
Spectator
Furst's uncanny gift for place and period lift his city, and its dubious cast of characters, well above the espionage norm
Independent
Furst's research is such that one gets the impression that he hasn't just travelled, he has time-travelled
Financial Times
Furst's intelligent thriller, reeking with the doomed atmosphere of pre-war Poland...bristles with tension
DAILY MAIL
Alan Furst's spy thriller is extraordinary for his mastery of period detail... enough twists along the way to satisfy even the most demanding reader
OBSERVER
He builds tension and detail brilliantly.
MATURE TIMES