Reissued in the terrific new cover style THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT sold over 35,000 copies Alan Furst receives exceptional reviews: 'One of the page-turners of the year' The Times 'RED GOLD out-Harrises Harris' Sunday Telegraph 'I never wanted The World at Night to end, and here's the sequel, every bit as good' Time Out 'Furst's spy novels deserve to be as feted as Patrick O'Brian's sea stories. Gloriously cinematic' Evening Standard 'Surely among the most convincing war books of our time' Sunday Telegraph 'Furst writes the best espionage thrillers in the business' Literary Review 'Wonderful books, wonderful writing' Irish Times 'Alan Furst writes brilliantly about wartime Europe' Economist 'His exquisitely wrought spy thrillers... set new standards for the genre' Sunday Telegraph 'Pleasurable and rewarding to read' Spectator 'This is the kind of literate and erudite writing we have come to expect from Alan Furst, who gives us an object lesson in how a quiet, beautifully written spy thriller can be just as gripping as anything in which bombs and bullets fly... excellent' Guardian
Alan Furst has lived for long periods in France, especially in Paris, and has travelled as a journalist in Eastern Europe and Russia. He has written extensively for Esquire and the International Herald Tribune.
Fleeing the Gestapo, Jean Casson enters into a dangerous plot to smuggle arms to the Communist resistance.
From the atmosphere established in his fifth novel's first sentence ("Casson woke in a room in a cheap hotel and smoked his last cigarette") to the knock on the door at the denouement, Furst again proves himself the master of his chosen terrain‘behind the lines of Nazi occupation in France during WWII. His previous novel, The World at Night, opened in May 1940, with French film producer Jean Casson setting out to take newsreels of the defense of France's Maginot line and becoming swamped in the German invasion. It is now September 1941, and Casson, broke and hiding under a false name, is about to commit fully to the Resistance. As a man of indeterminate political affiliation, he's chosen to negotiate between the Resistance and the French Communists, who, with the German army on the verge of taking Moscow, have orders from Stalin to sabotage the Nazis in any way possible. The "red gold" SS looters try to steal in Russia is a metaphoric payment in blood, while in Paris informers are everywhere and collaboration is still rampant. Furst's textured plot‘exhibiting shifting loyalties and betrayals; lone, often hopeless acts of heroism; and lovers bravely parting‘makes for spellbinding drama. (In one scene, a clandestine radio operator broadcasts a few moments too long, and hears soldiers' boots racing up the stairs to get him.) Furst, who deserves the comparisons he's earned to Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, seems to be settling into a franchise here, rather than reaching for the fire he caught in his third novel, The Polish Officer. Casson's story unfolds convincingly, however, and as it continues here to April of 1942, promises a few more episodes to come from this author's tried and true brand of masterfully detailed espionage. (Apr.)
'This is the kind of literate and erudite writing we have come to expect from Alan Furst, who gives us an object lesson in how a quiet, beautifully written spy thriller can be just as gripping as anything in which bombs and bullets fly...excellent.' - Guardian'[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.' - Scotsman'Throughout, the author's delight in the process of espionage shines through.' - TLS
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