Book description
Andre Szara, survivor of the Polish pogroms and the Russian civil wars, is a journalist working for Pravda in 1937. War in Europe is already underway and Szara is co-opted to join the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence agency. He does his best to survive the tango of pre-war politics…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Dark Star as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
As the first in his series of novels on the 1930s in Europe, Alan Furst's Night Soldier tends to earn the most critical praise, but Dark Star remains my personal favorite. Furst masters the noir ambiance and moral ambiguity of Europe as war approaches, where everyday people are drawn into the world of espionage and intrigue. His settings often lie outside the main urban centers of Paris and Berlin in the remote reaches of Eastern Europe. Furst's novels are impeccably researched for accurate detail-one of …
From Patrick's list on espionage and resistance in Hitler's Third Reich.
Alan Furst specialises in thrillers set in pre-War Europe with all the moral ambiguity of that time. I loved that aspect of this book, and I wanted to capture some of that in The Fulcrum Files; the idea that the horrors to come were not as inevitable as they now seem.
From Mark's list on historical thrillers set just before WWII.
If you love Dark Star...
Citizen Orlov
Not every fishmonger can be a secret agent.
Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who answers a phone call meant for a secret agent and stumbles into a hidden…
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