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!1: Now is the time Blood of Victory: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $6.64
Date Created : Oct 06, 2010 23:21:05
In the autumn of 1940, Russian émigré journalist I. A. Serebin is recruited in Istanbul by an agent of the British secret services for a clandestine operation to stop German importation of Romanian oil—a last desperate attempt to block Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Serebin’s race against time begins in Bucharest and leads him to Paris, the Black Sea, Beirut, and, finally, Belgrade; his task is to attack the oil barges that fuel German tanks and airplanes. Blood of Victory is a novel with the heart-pounding suspense, extraordinary historical accuracy, and narrative immediacy we have come to expect from Alan Furst.
!1: Best Buy Blood of Victory suffers the disadvantage of following the masterpiece Kingdom of Shadows. While an extraordinary novel by normal standards, it has less attention to minor characters than most Furst novels, and, presumably in an effort to attract popular attention, the plot is the most procedural of his you'll find, even ending with a climactic action sequence!
Never before has Furst's admiration for Eric Ambler been more apparent, with many interesting parallels with A Coffin for Demitrios, not the least of which is the locales.You'll find the usual intertwining of characters and events with other Furst novels and terrific prose, but there isn't as much to savor here as usual. It's almost Furst-lite. There are a couple of plot points which are particularly fuzzy, but there is an interesting exploration into the motivations behind becoming an espionage agent that are more fully attended here than in other Furst novels. The reader is drawn through the difficult process of choosing to fight. Yes, you'll find the usual ambience that enshrouds Furst's characters, but their stage seems a bit bare, as if some of the attention to detail we've come to expect from Furst is missing. A very good novel, but just not his best. on Sale!
!1: Now is the time Spies, Scandals, and Sultans: Istanbul in the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire Order Today!
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Date Created : Sep 22, 2010 13:34:13
Spies, Scandals, and Sultans is the first English translation of a fascinating and acidly critical portrait of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul during the days of the Sultan Abd al-Hamid. This is the first time that the text, written by an Egyptian journalist and politician, has been available since 1896. The text of the Arabic original is prefaced with an extensive introduction in which the author's life is discussed and the highly controversial contents of the book are contextualized and evaluated for their accuracy against other contemporary accounts of life in the Ottoman capital.
!1: Now is the time Balkanized at Sunrise: How a Sci-Fi Author Was Recruited to Keep a President from a War Crimes Indictment Order Today!
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Date Created : Sep 07, 2010 05:17:13
The Time: the immediate aftermath of the bloody Balkan wars of the 90s.
The Man: a penniless science-fiction author.
The Job: write the official biography of Croatia's President, Franjo Tudjman.
In an effort to keep Tudjman out of the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, the Croatian government hired Joe Tripician, author of "The Official Alien Abductee's Handbook", to pen a state-sanctioned biography for US consumption. The biography, far from a whitewashed piece of propaganda, became a darkly comic and sadly tragic tale of deception, danger, death and desire, where guilt abounds, but responsibility remains elusive.
"Balkanized at Sunrise" is the true story of how Joe navigated between toadying government aides, lying politicians, harassed dissident journalists, and Croatian and Bosnian women looking for a quick visa. It's a fascinating memoir of political, moral, and sexual proportions.
!1: Best Buy I saw the author perform his riveting story in a New York theater, and this book is just as entertaining. There's nothing better than a good spy thriller, and "Balkanized at Sunrise" is an excellent read with a strong comedic voice. It covers Balkan politics and intrigue from the author's unique point of view when he was hired to write the official biography of Croatia's war-time President, Franjo Tudjman.
As the protagonist of the story the author spares no self-criticism, and is equally as brutally honest in his assessment of the political players in the field. The mystery of why he was hired and why he took the assignment is revealed at the end in a most satisfying way.
"Balkanized at Sunrise" is a one-of-a-kind book about a once-in-a-lifetime situation. There are passages that are extremely funny and others that are genuinely moving. I wish it were available in hard copy so I could place it on my bookshelf.
±1±: Now is the time Red Gold: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $6.10
Date Created : Aug 22, 2010 21:00:14
Autumn 1941: In a shabby hotel off the place Clichy, the course of the war is about to change. German tanks are rolling toward Moscow. Stalin has issued a decree: All partisan operatives are to strike behind enemy lines—from Kiev to Brittany. Set in the back streets of Paris and deep in occupied France, Red Gold moves with quiet menace as predators from the dark edge of war—arms dealers, lawyers, spies, and assassins—emerge from the shadows of the Parisian underworld. In their midst is Jean Casson, once a well-to-do film producer, now a target of the Gestapo living on a few francs a day. As the occupation tightens, Casson is drawn into an ill-fated mission: running guns to combat units of the French Communist Party. Reprisals are brutal. At last the real resistance has begun. Red Gold masterfully re-creates the shadow world of French resistance in the darkest days of World War II.
±1±: Best Buy Former film producer Jean Casson returns as the main character, still struggling against man's inhumanity to man, in a France that seems to have given-in to its inevitable domination by Germany. After Furst's earlier "The World At Night", where Casson first chose to rebel, he is now a more skilled agent of resistance. He is tougher and more inventive, yet still vulnerable and human. His loves are real and passionate, and his losses accepted. They come with the war.
In his 1999 novel, "Red Gold", when author Alan Furst describes this good man's descent into poverty and desperation during the horrors of Nazi occupation in Paris, we shiver in the dank and desolate hotel room with him, and we can almost taste the foul soup and moldy bread. Furst is that good a writer. His willingness to allow small victories and moments of humanity provides welcome bits of redemption.
Furst knows about war and rough living, especially for the nomads from eastern Europe, who hate the nazis and fight desperately to escape the hold of mother Russia, whether in occupied France, Bulgaria or Madrid. Through his spare and vivid descriptions of places, and of real people thrust into unbelievable conditions, we learn how it must have happened in France. How people got involved with underground movements, how they compromised their friends, and how they became other people in order to simply survive. By extension, a reader can better understand how danger, violence, compromise, greed and deceit are still happening in different theaters like Iraq and Somalia and Afghanistan.
Furst is a wonderful, inventive writer, who knows how to tell complex stories in a simple, profound way. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time The High Lord (The Black Magician Trilogy, Book 3) Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $3.29
Date Created : Aug 08, 2010 07:30:22
"You want to know the truth."
Sonea has learned much since she was but a penniless urchin possessing an awesome untapped ability. She has earned the grudging respect of her fellow novices and a place in the Magicians' Guild. But there is much she wishes she had never learned -- what she witnessed, for example, in the underground chamber of the mysterious High Lord Akkarin . . . and the knowledge that the Guild is being observed closely by an ancient fearsome enemy.
Still, she dares not ignore the terrifying truths the High Lord would share with her, even though she fears it may be base trickery, a scheme to use her astonishing powers to accomplish his dark aims. For Sonea knows her future is in his hands -- and that only in the shadows will she achieve true greatness . . . if she survives.
±1±: Best Buy The third volume is an enjoyable wrap up to the series. If you enjoyed the first two, you'll like it. It's quite a bit longer than the first two, though.
Like the first two volumes, it has its flaws. There are some interesting characters, and tantalizing hints to the nature of the world outside, but there are also long, pointless sections, and a few things that just don't make sense.
But I like Canavan's characters, perhaps mostly because they seem to actually listen to each other. So much bad fantasy creates conflict from the characters unwillingness or inability to talk to each other. And Canavan's characters, shockingly, also seem to be able to entertain the idea that they might be wrong.
I get so tired of cardboard villains and always-right heroes that this book's conflict between the Guild and the High Lord was quite refreshing. Both sides are interesting characters who, based on their own view of the world, feel that they are working for the greater good of all. They just disagree on methods. I find this vastly more interesting than fighting someone because they are "Evil".
Canavan has also clearly left room for more stories set in this world. If she writes them, I'll read them. I suspect she's going to just keep getting better. on Sale!
Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $8.58
Date Created : Jul 24, 2010 11:00:14
“The clever denouement will have readers clamoring for a sequel.”—BookPage
“Zoo Station is a beautifully crafted and compelling thriller with a heart-stopping ending as John Russell learns the personal faces of good and evil. An unforgettable read.”—Charles Todd, author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge Series
“A finely drawn portrait of the capital of a nation marching in step toward disaster.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“[A] smooth, scary wartime thriller drenched in period atmosphere.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] suspenseful tale of an ordinary man living in a dangerous place during a dangerous time who finds within himself the strength to do heroic acts.”—Booklist
“If you like your tales spiced with morally ambiguous characters right out of Graham Greene, this is a train you need to be aboard. . . . A marvelous return to cerebral espionage.”—January Magazine
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent fifteen years in Berlin, where his German-born son lives. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as war approaches, he faces the prospect of having to leave his son and his longtime girlfriend.
Then, an acquaintance from his communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets. Russell is reluctant but ultimately unable to resist. He becomes involved in other dangerous activities, helping a Jewish family and an idealistic American reporter. When the British and the Nazis notice his involvement with the Soviets, Russell is dragged into the world of warring intelligence services.
±1±: Best Buy In my quest to find new authors to enjoy, I've found one in author David Downing, who has written a series of tales set in the Germany of the Third Reich. Filled with plenty of details about the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, it's one that caught me at the opening pages and didn't let go until I was finished with the novel. And that, well, it usually doesn't happen with the usual espionage thriller.
Anglo-American journalist John Russell has a very unenviable life. He's surviving in a rather hand-to-mouth fashion doing freelance articles in Berlin, and as the year 1938 draws to a close, he's with other journalists in a seedy bar in Danzig, celebrating well, with not much cheer. Indeed, there isn't much cheer anywhere in Germany it seems.
He's there to wind up a story, and there comes a knock at his hotel room door, to a stranger named Shchepkin. And Shchepkin has a very lucrative offer for Russell -- all he has to do is spy on the Germans for the Russians, for which he will be compensated handsomely. Russell isn't too eager to take on the job, despite being a member of the Communist party in the past.
For one, he doesn't want to attract much notice in Germany, especially from the dreaded police forces. He has a young son, Paul, in the country, the only good thing to ever come out of his failed marriage. And despite Shchepkin's assurances, the offer sounds fishy indeed, but the money is too much of a lure to turn down.
So Russell starts his series of articles, looking at the lives of ordinary Germans, and quickly the money starts to come in, along with praise from his agent in London, who says that the stories are selling well. Unfortunately, they also attract the attention of the German officials. And when the English start to get involved in the mix, John Russell finds himself up to his neck in trouble.
Especially when a bright young American journalist named McKinley asks for Russell's help in translating a source. And this source is hiding a terrible, tragic secret about what is happening to the disabled in Germany...
I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot here, it's just too tight and too good to miss. This novel is full of little details, plenty of action, trains and trams hurtling through the night, and a sly, despairing humour that fits in perfectly in the time and place. As well as Shchepkin, there are other interesting characters to get to know and like, among them John's son Paul, a lively and smart ten-year-old, Effie, John's actress friend and mistress who's just as clever off the stage as well as on it, and a Jewish family that is trying desperately to get out of Germany, as well as the setting of the place.
Germany isn't at war -- yet -- but the streets are full of uniforms, there are already shortages and bodies keep turning up, usually clad in the story of a suicide or two. Downing keeps plenty of balls in the air and the story moving briskly along here, and gives plenty of little details and historical events to keep it interesting.
What made this different from every other WWII espionage novel is that the wit in here is blistering and sarcastic, along with some real tragedy to keep everything in balance. Russell is far from being the usual sort of hero; he's refreshingly ordinary and has to work to find his solutions, which kept this story from being too over the top. The book itself isn't very long, not much more than two hundred pages, and it makes for a quick evening read, which was nice after taking in some stories that are the size of bricks. Another aspect that saved this one for me is that the story is free of a great deal of jargon and technobabble which also helped.
Summing up, this is a novel that I heartily recommend to anyone interested in a good spy thriller, with plenty of fast-paced action and a hero that you can cheer for. Four stars overall, and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
±1±: Now is the time Angelology: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $10.99
Date Created : Jul 09, 2010 18:38:18
A thrilling epic about an ancient clash reignited in our time- between a hidden society and heaven's darkest creatures
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Genesis 6:5
Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.
For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.
Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.
±1±: Best Buy This book is simply a "can't put it down" gem of a supernatural thriller. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book so much, really could not put it down, and couldn't wait for the next installment. Wait I do remember. It was years ago -- it was Anne Rice's witch trilogy-- Lives of the Mayfair Witches. What Rice did for gothing up New Orleans, Trussoni does for New York City. (And NYC is far more of challenge, along with how to make the Rockefellers' gothic and part of the world of angels!)
If you liked these fictional angels and Nephilim, another suggestion. A non-fiction book with alleged true tales of angels -- archangels, other angels, fallen angels and more, in the life a of well known musician.
It's called Angels on My Stage: The True Story of Eddie Benitez.
These are not your grandmother's angels, in either book. They are not Tame.
±1±: Now is the time The Mission: CIA in the Balkans Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $12.43
Date Created : Jun 24, 2010 08:34:13
Ivan Kolev claws an opening under a barbed wire fence in a driving rain and escapes from Communist Bulgaria to Greece, and into a Greek Army ambush.Kolevs freedom is short-lived. After weeks of interrogation, the CIA recruits him to return to Bulgaria clandestinely on an espionage mission.He trains physically for months in the rugged mountains of northern Greece shepherded by a tough Greek, a former guerilla fighter. Then, when proficient in the use of a pistol, map, compass and camera, he is dispatched by the CIA to Bulgaria.Enter the world of Cold War espionage as Kolev voluntarily surrenders to the Bulgarian Intelligence Service and agrees to become a double agent, a decision that exposes him to violence and the risk of death, and one that changes his life forever.The Mission also portrays the rarely told story of the reality of life in the CIAs clandestine service; the dangers its operations officers face and the impact on their personal lives.
±1±: Best Buy This book is a very different kind of novel. It doesn't have the blood and guts of most spy novels, but instead has a look at the true "intelligence" side of a covert CIA agent and his actions. I found the way they trained the Bulgarian, and what they used to uncover the "real story" of his subsequent actions absolutely fascinating. It also gives an insight into the life of CIA agents themselves. This book is a quick read - it'll sure hold your attention. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Spies of the Balkans: A Novel Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $13.90
Date Created : Jun 16, 2010 05:53:20
Greece, 1940. Not sunny vacation Greece: northern Greece, Macedonian Greece, Balkan Greece—the city of Salonika. In that ancient port, with its wharves and warehouses, dark lanes and Turkish mansions, brothels and tavernas, a tense political drama is being played out. On the northern border, the Greek army has blocked Mussolini’s invasion, pushing his divisions back to Albania—the first defeat suffered by the Nazis, who have conquered most of Europe. But Adolf Hitler cannot tolerate such freedom; the invasion is coming, it’s only a matter of time, and the people of Salonika can only watch and wait.
At the center of this drama is Costa Zannis, a senior police official, head of an office that handles special “political” cases. As war approaches, the spies begin to circle, from the Turkish legation to the German secret service. There’s a British travel writer, a Bulgarian undertaker, and more. Costa Zannis must deal with them all. And he is soon in the game, securing an escape route—from Berlin to Salonika, and then to a tenuous safety in Turkey, a route protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangsters. And hunted by the Gestapo.
Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a local shipping magnate.
Declared “an incomparable expert at his game” by The New York Times, Alan Furst outdoes even his own finest novels in this thrilling new book. With extraordinary authenticity, a superb cast of characters, and heart-stopping tension as it moves from Salonika to Paris to Berlin and back, Spies of the Balkans is a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to right—in many small ways—the world’s evil.
±1±: Best Buy I've been reading Furst since his first book, and I'm thrilled that he's finally gotten around to setting something in my ancestral homeland (Greece). That said, he does have a very distinctive style that is definitely not to everyone's taste. His narratives tend to unfold in a somewhat fractured way, in vignettes that can sometimes skip large swathes of time and geography. His characters can often have a somewhat detached tone to them, which can make them somewhat less empathetic than your average spy/thriller protagonists. Personally, I feel no one does WWII atmosphere better, and I'm always glad to step back in time to a world that he's captured so wonderfully.
This book revolves around Constantine Zannis, a Greek police detective serving in Salonika (present-day Thessaloniki, historically, Greece's second-largest city). He works for a shadowy high-ranking police patron on "special" cases that involve more discretion and nuance than called for in common crimes. Although in 1940 the war has yet to reach Greece, it's clear that it's only a matter of time before it does, and the city is crawling with Allied and Axis spies. As the war creeps closer and closer to the border, we see him change roles, from policeman to spycatcher to activated reserve officer to Allied agent.
In these roles we first see Zannis get involved in an underground railroad helping Jews escape German-controlled territory into Turkey. This is handled very well, as we see all aspects of the operation, from the German enablers, their SS hunters, the scared couples on trains chugging through the Balkans, the palms that need to be greased at the Turkish border, etc. And when he gets trucked north to serve in a unit along the border, it brings home the human scale of the war in Europe. The biggest storyline involves British agents (which include a former girlfriend) convincing him to go to Paris and bring out a British scientist caught in the occupied city. But what might be the central high stakes premise in another writer's thriller is in Furst's war just another task to be grimly undertaken by a committed and principled man.
The one area in which this book stumbles is in some of Zannis' personal relationships, especially an insipid affair with the stunning wife of a shipping magnate. It comes out of nowhere and does nothing for the story except drag it kicking and screaming into the realm of conventional Hollywood blockbuster ("they found passion amidst the winds of war"). Fortunately, it's just a minor glitch, and there is none of the grand sweep and heft of typical spy thrillers. Furst is more of miniaturist, working in fine detail to create a series of stories that, read together, accrue a heft of their own. on Sale!
