The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst

A few months ago Weidenfeld & Nicolson advertised that they would be giving away a free book to anyone who signed up to their mailing list. Not saying no to a book and having never read a spy thriller the option I decided on was Alan Furst’s The Spies of Warsaw. 

The book was a nice surprise in the post after a few weeks and proved to be a bargain at the small fee of giving out my email address.

Set in 1937 Poland, the thriller follows a deadly game of espionage played out between French and German operatives. Easy to read and thoroughly engaging, I completed it in less than a week and enjoyed being transported to the Europe of pre World War II. 

What was most entertaining about The Spies of Warsaw was Furst’s grasp of the time. In the book he displays a knack for placing a character directly in the political turmoil of the 1930’s and eliminating any evidence that it is in fact a work of fiction. The main protagonist is free to circle the cocktail parties and hotel bars of Berlin, Paris and Warsaw and engage the subtle art of information trafficking. The job is at times a perilous one: as you will see the military attaché enjoying ponczkis at a local café one day and fighting SS men the next.
 

Yet behind all the merriment and excitement a central question preoccupies The Spies of Warsaw, placing it under a cloud of mournful retrospection: “What will become of these people?”  

All characters are set under the glooming dark shadow of the First World War and the apprehension of the next.

The first espionage novel I’ve ever read, I enjoyed Alan Furst’s blend of fact and fiction and the mixture of action and melancholy. What’s more I’ve now got the bug to go and visit Europe again.