Pros: Excellent spy thriller about exiles' resistance to German Nazi takeover in Italy.
Cons: Carlo Weisz's love for Christa von Schirren intersects and trumps the espionage theme.
The Bottom Line: Highly recommend as a much misunderstood Furst masterwork wherein love survives against all odds. Crisp prose. Brilliant plot. Living characters.
wickengel's Full Review: Alan Furst - The Foreign Correspondent: A Novel
Carlo Weisz, international foreign correspondent, links the action in Madrid, Paris and Milan in Europe in late 1938 and 1939, particularly the exiled Italian Resistenza, in an unusual novel by Alan Furst.
Why unusual? Four reasons. First, the author's focus is on the resistance in Fascist Italy in Milan. Second, the novel does not have Furst's usual apparatus of a Reader's Guide implying a reportorial rather than scholarly intent. Third, the author makes the assumption that the reader is familiar with Count Janos Polyani's orchestra of European spies--no explanations are offered, only something very like a sepia-toned group photograph of old family friends. Fourth, the critical enterprise is Weisz's smuggling an entire printing shop into Milan to carry out a specifically literary action--anti-Fascist propaganda.
The tone, pace, characters and settings of the novel are governed by the above four divergences from Furst's normal pattern, and the author's approach is also oblique and non-allusive.
The author starts with Weisz's coverage of the action in Spain in the person of the hero "Colonel Ferrara." This sets up the entire story through Weisz's collaboration with fellow-ournalist Mary McGrath, a 41-year-old American correspondent with the Chicago Tribune.
Unless you want to be disappointed, therefore, do not expect the same ambience as you found in previous novels by this author. Where Furst was formerly extremely comfortable dealing with France, Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, in this novel his view is limited to events recorded through the eyes of his new Republican hero. Only when he arrives in his native Italy does Weisz break into the poetry we are accustomed to.
Weisz's stated aim in France is to write the story of "Ferrara" in exile, which will surely follow the Republican defeat in Spain. After his prefatory encounter with the hero whose story will later consume his time, Weisz proceeds to live the classic story of the Reuters correspondent living on "bread and cheese and wine" (and women) in Paris. Except that, according to spy Arturo Salamone, Weisz's instinct, ideas and insights are needed by anti-Fascist intelligence networks. recruitment leads to literary assignments with political overtones.
I suspect that this kind of oblique resistance activity turns off some readers and reviewers with established expectations of Furst's heros, but who among them will not recognize the ubiquitous Mr. Brown, whose business is "just plain old commerce"? Of course, Mr. Brown is an espionage orchestra leader for British intelligence, and Weisz's friend Olivia is part of the game: "Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy."
And what aficionado of Furst's novels could forget S. Kolb, associate of Mr. Brown, whose actions on the ground occur at society's lowest levels with minimal visibility though with ingenuity and sometimes violence. He buys his way to freedom from certain death, "a little clerk in his underpants."
With fine meals on the one hand, where the high-level orchestration occurs, to clandestine hand-offs of suspect blueprints that lead to armaments intelligence, to the laborer and mechanic level view of operational means, we are treated to the whole panoply of spy activity against a backdrop of assassination, continuous surveillance and threat of apprehension and death. As priceless intelligence, Weisz is passed lists of names of those who were paid agents of the German Reich, a surveillance organization within the Italian Department Public Security and Questura (or national police). The names include agents in every Italian town and city. In other words, Weisz gains clear evidence of massive penetration of Italy by Germany. This is a symbol of things to come for his homeland.
So while Weisz collaborates on a book with Ferrara (an operation of British SIS), he is sucked into the rear-guard action combating Italian Fascism as war looms over Europe. On his one hand is Mary McGrath, on his other is Christa von Schirren, his lover, who first informs him about German plans to invade Poland.
The book is full of incidents indication the oppression of the time. For example, there is the case of spy Elena Casale and her formidable female boss "the Dragon." Confusion of networks, false flag investigations, penetrations and genuine police investigations complicate matters significantly.
By the time Mr. Brown, with Kolb's help, prepares Weisz for his covert re-insertion into Italy, the situation has become very cramped and dangerous not only in France but also in Italy. After receiving a promise from Brown, Weisz finally reaches "home": "The night was warm, a familiar warmth, soft ont the skin, and fragrant with the scents of decay--damp stone and drains, mud flats at low tide." Here is the Furst we remember from other novels, but briefly. Italy may signify home for Weisz, but it really means suspicion, betrayal and near apprehension. Only through an immense dea ex machina, an old parish priest and a chain of chance encounters does Weisz survive.
Essential to effective espionage is keeping promises--no matter what, and, we learn, the British always keep their word. Kolb is the instrument of Frau von Schirren's escape--and her reunion with Weisz is nothing shy of revelation.
Furst's actions are economical, his style is lucid, and his characters are real. What can be said about the author's devoting only a few pages to the central mission Weisz is given? Such is the nature of the spy trade, we must assume.
The greatest living writer of espionage fiction ( Houston Chronicle ) returns with his most suspenseful and stylish novel yet, in which an internation...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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