Book description
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 attache from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Spies of Warsaw as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Reading a novel by Alan Furst is like seeing Casablanca for the first time, if it were written by Hemingway. There’s that same evocative atmosphere of people smoking cigarettes, having affairs, making sophisticated remarks, while looming over them is the war. Furst mines a narrow niche. All of his books are set in Europe either during World War Two or in the Thirties, with the war threatening. The protagonist here is Colonel Mercier, military attaché at the French embassy in Warsaw. Mercier must navigate the salons and alleyways of Warsaw against all manner of spies and German agents. The book…
From Andrew's list on spy thrillers that are about more than spies.
I’ve always felt humanity could avoid wars and repeating itself through the study of historical cycles. And what struck me about this book is how it is the perfect depiction of the run-up to the 2nd world war. Furst creates an amazingly perspective on mid 20th century Europe in this regard. My grandfather was Polish and lost many of his relatives in the Holocaust; The Spies of Warsaw is a look into old Pre-Soviet Poland, its complex nationalism, and the run-up to Hitler’s ‘sudden’ invasion - the trigger to the 2nd WW. But, instead of broad historical troupes,…
From Tobsha's list on thrillers to educate and escape into guilt-free.
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