The Foreign Correspondent: A Novel Reviews

• A Pleasurable Genre Novel-Rich in Atmosphere and Details

  
  By AQDJTEIDUKK5B on 2006-06-09
  It is December 1938 and a small group of Italian exiles meet in the back room of the Cafe Europa in Paris. The editor of their underground newspaper Liberazione has just been assasinated by the Italian secret police and they need to find a new editor. They choose Carlo Weisz, a foreign correspondent for the Rueters News Agency. The novel that follows is Carlo Weisz battle to keep the anti-fascist Liberazione alive and publishing. To do this, he must enter the shadowy world of French, British and Italian spies.
  
  There are very few authors who can legitimately say they dominate a genre of literature. In the same way that John Le Carre owns the Cold War spy novel or Louis L'Amour the Western, Alan Furst is the great stylist of the 1930's spy novel. Furst is not interested in the high end spy but rather the every day working spy. In classic Furst style, "The Foreign Correspondent" takes the reader to battlefields of Spain, French internment camps, Genoese dockyards and to Paris' working class neighborhoods. Because Furst writes only about this period, he is able to fill his novels with the gritty details that make his stories believable.
  
  So how does "The Foreign Correspondent" fall within the body of Furst's work. It is somewhere in the middle. It is not his best nor his worst novel. I like the world Alan Furst creates and even one of his average novels gives me great pleasure. For those who like Furst's novels, check out the works of Eric Ambler, the first master of this genre.
  
  

• Good read for summer days or winter nights

  
  By A28PRU8FTMCT8J on 2006-06-11
  A friend of mine in London recently asked for a suggestion about a good book to read on the night train from Munich to Prague. I immediately recommended Alan Furst's King of Shadows, which opens on the night train from Budapest to Paris. An Alan Furst novel is often the answer to a request for a `good read'. His latest, "Foreign Correspondent", is no exception
  
  Furst comes from a line of writers that can be traced back to both Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. Like Ambler, Furst often takes an unassuming, or unwitting civilian and immerses him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre and post-World War II Europe. Foreign Correspondent opens in Civil War Spain but quickly moves to pre-war Paris. Italian journalist Carlo Weisz, a refugee from Mussolini's fascist Italy living in Paris, is part of a group of Italian expatriates who print a dissident newspaper, Liberazione, and smuggle it into Italy. The Italian secret police, the OVRA, has infiltrated the group. One of its members has been murdered and each member of the group is feeling the effects of the OVRA turning the screws on their operations. At the same time Weisz' day job as a foreign correspondent for Reuters takes him back and forth to the Berlin of Hitler, Himmler, and Goring. It is in Berlin that Weisz reunites with and reignites his affair with Christa von Schirren. Along the way Weisz comes to the attention of and is recruited by British Intelligence. The plot outline is simple: will Weisz and his cell continue to publish Liberazione and will Weisz be able to get Christa out of Berlin before the war that everyone knows is coming closes all borders.
  
  Furst's strong point has always been how he sets the scene. His atmospherics are tremendous. His descriptions of the streets of Berlin or Paris or Barcelona and the atmosphere of those cities reek of authenticity. Similarly, Furst has a keen eye for the inner life of his protagonists. Almost invariably Furst manages to convey a real sense of how those protagonists think and feel. Both of these elements of his writing generally dominate his plotting and are primarily responsible for getting the reader to turn to the next page. This is certainly the case with Foreign Correspondent. The plot itself is not complex and it did not leave me wondering what was going to happen next. Similarly, the book did not really build to a real climax. The book ended more with a sigh than with a bang. Some may find that a bit disappointing. However, as readers of Furst's books already know his novels strive for authenticity. In much of life, particularly in the era Furst writes about, storybook endings or dramatic endings are more the exception than the rule. However, despite being aware of this I think the ending was more than a bit anti-climactic and more so than in some of his other novels.
  
  All in all, and as the title of the review suggests, despite some weakness in plotting (in my opinion) Foreign Correspondent will make for a satisfying read for a long, lazy summer day or a freezing winter night.
  
  
  

• Italian Emigres Battle OVRA Fascist Agents in France

  
  By A260X99UW6HA9Z on 2006-06-10
  In "The Foreign Correspondent", Alan Furst has moved away from his traditional novels populated with characters from lesser known Eastern European nations. The main characters are Italian émigrés in France, which does carry on the line of lost and exiled heroes that often appear in his novels. I think he has been moving in new directions since his last novel, "Dark Voyage", set primarily on board a freighter, and these latest works are as successful as the previous despite their differences. Carlo Weisz is also a more traditional hero than some of Furst's other sordid characters: he is a reporter for Reuters with a love interest working against the Nazis in Berlin. The setting is still in the late interwar years, a commonality with the previous novels, and Weisz makes a difficult and dangerous transition from mild opposition against the Fascists in Italy to outright subversion of his home government through the course of the novel; their particular weapon being a anti-fascist underground newspaper. The crisis is ignited by a political assassination in Paris and has far reaching consequences for Weisz and his companions. Throughout the novel Weisz and his émigré friends are hounded by OVRA operatives, courted by both the British SIS and the French Interior Ministry, and must find ways to survive in a world that is often annoyed with their presence. Furst also continues to include some familiar characters from his pervious adventures at the famous Brasserie Heininger in a very well written chapter (it is never a forced encounter, surprisingly). What will keep you up late reading is the main dilemma of the novel: will both Weisz and his lover Christa von Schirren survive, and will they be together?
  
  Although this novel can easily be read as a stand-alone book, some readers will enjoy beginning their foray into Furst's world with "Night Soldiers", his original and possibly best spy novel. This book introduces several characters who make appearances throughout Furst's other novels set in the same period of time and general geographical local. Because of this fact, I highly recommend reading this novel first, although those that follow can typically be read in any particular order (the exception being the stories involving Jean Casson - World at Night and Red Gold).
  
  What makes Furst's loosely structured series so compelling is that 1; they are very well researched and historical very accurate, especially with regard to spy craft - as I understand it through academic experience only. 2; the characters are extremely flawed, very believable and interesting to empathize with - all of the characters and their adventures provoke much thought. 3; the novels do not attempt to achieve a false sense of conclusion at their end - they always allow the reader to decide for him/herself what happens, and they rarely resolve the feeling of tension that pervades Furst's works. 4; the secondary characters are always very well developed and much more interesting than their sometimes small roles would have the reader believe- so one is always off balance (who will live, who will die - who can be trusted, who cannot?). 5; Furst does an excellent job of setting the atmosphere of terror that resulted from the conflict between fascism, Stalinism and freedom during the secret wars preceding the outbreak of the Second World War.
  
  Although this is not Furst's best novel by far (for that start with "Night Soldiers"), you cannot go wrong with the "Foreign Correspondent". For anyone interested in reading and enjoying spy stories, or stories of world war two, this book is a must read.
  
  

• Old and Tired

  
  By A29IYGR7SNPRIV on 2006-07-02
  Typically, Furst has hit the big time with his least successful effort. I have read every book the author has ever written and it would appear that his work has become incredibly formulaic. While the early books had heart and energy and characters who were lost and lonely but always valiant, this time around the whole thing creaks like a haunted house. The characters are plastic and unsympathetic; their dilemmas are old news. Furst has plowed these fields far more productively in the past. The Foreign Correspondent is an old turkey overstuffed with research that practically shouts at the reader, "Hey, check me out! I am research. Am I fascinating and great, or what?" No subtlety, a terrible (almost criminal) misuse of commas that actually alter the meaning of sentences, and a mistreatment of English as a primary language. (Allright is NOT one word!) Who edited this? They need to be forced to attend nightly grammar classes for six months. When they've finished that, they need to attend basic sentence structure classes. In the meantime, I agree with the other reviewers: Mr. Furst needs to create a new formula. This one is not even remotely representative of his best work.
  
  

• You don't have to feel guilty reading this literary thriller!

  
  By A2PSYVIMYAI3MR on 2006-06-04
  I picked this up for my dad for Father's Day as he is a big Fan of Furst's writing, but started reading the fist chapter--just to check it out--and was unable to stop reading. Finished it in two days, and this is not a breezy read! The setting is 1939 Paris and foreign correspondent Carlo Weisz goes to work as an editor for an underground journal reacting against the fascist regime in Italy. The plot is simple as it revolves around his attempts to enlist help in the cause, his arrest and eventual escape; but the real pleasure here is not so much the twist and turns of the plot but the shadowy underworld that Furst creates, peopled with just as shadowy-and sometimes menacing-characters. The tension in this thriller comes from unknown sources, the reality of what "IS", the undisclosed, not from one evil source. In the end it is about not succumbing to the way things are but taking steps towards change, no matter how small they may be. This is a beautifully written book that should be on everyone's reading list!
  
  
• I love Furst but....
  By A2GLELHZ2DJOJB on 2006-07-03
  This is not a novel into which he has put much effort. I have read every book in Furst's admirable series about men and women caught up in the resistance movements of World War II and I have enjoyed every one until "The Foreign Correspondent". Books like "The Polish Officer" and "Kingdom of Shadows" are worthy of the highest praise but in this latest effort the plot is a recycled one; the action is thin; the use of recurrent characters has now reached joke proportions. Please, Mr Furst, either get back your interest in this series or move on to something that engages your considerable talents.
  
  
• The Foreign Correspondent of Success!!
  By A12DLJESJKM1OQ on 2006-06-04
  In his book, "The Foreign Correspondent - A Novel," Alan Furst, also known as Carlo Weisz in the book, fled to Mussolini's Italy in 1938 and established a beachfront of the Italian resistance in Paris. He describes his story when Mussolini's secret police murder Liberazione, the editor of the resistance's underground newspaper. This is when Carlo Weisz is chosen to replace him. The story unfolds later when his covert duties become increasingly hazardous when his day job with Reuters takes him to Berlin during the Nazi ramp-up for war. There, he rekindles a love affair with an old flame whose anti-Nazi friends have volatile information that could burn both the monstrous Mussolini and the Italy Weisz hopes to preserve.
  
  To not spoil the excitement of this novel, this is a highly recommended book for those who like to read thriller or suspense books. I was soo hooked on the book from beginning to end that I read it in less than one day. A must have for those who like to read for fun, and for those who are fans of Alan Furst, who is known to be America's preeminent spy novelist in the world today!!!
  
  
• Badly disappointed
  By A1KDK7W0J9LAIT on 2006-06-14
  I really wanted to like this book, after reading reviews in the WSJ and the LA Times. And pre-war Europe was my fave epoch.
  
  But Furst doesn't deliver. He violates that first commandment of writing, "Show, don't tell." He tells, and tells, and tells. Carlo has no unrevealed nuance.
  
  I kept reading to find out the traitor in the Liberazione circle - and when it is revealed, so what?
  
  Yes, the period detail is lush, excruciatingly so. Carlo goes to Spain, Carlo goes to Berlin, to Prague, to Genoa. Again, so what?
  
  The love scenes are clumsy, the sentence fragments are annoying.
  
  I'll not bother to read any more Furst.
  
  
• Lo-Cal Version of the Real Thing
  By A3C5ZEMLI4VZC2 on 2006-09-20
  This is a step up from an airplane read or a commuter book; engaging but of no particular noteworthiness. It is a lukewarm tale in the vein of Eric Ambler, whom Furst mentions as a strong influence. Ambler, who essentially created the genre of the spy thriller, remains the master and those who are not familiar with his work have a wonderful treat in store. This will be especially true for those who enjoyed The Foreign Correspondent or other Furth works.
  
  The story is strongest when it delves into the history of the period. There is an abundance of detail that signals that the writer has researched his subject thoroughly. The dialogue works hard to move the plot along, but lacks an ear for how conversations actually sound. The intimate scenes are necessary to the story but are painful and seem to have been written by a cloistered nun with a poor imagination.
  
  The enthusiasm with which this book was greeted is more a testament to the scarcity of quality in the genre than anything else. Do yourself a favor,(and save a buck) by directing your cursor to the many delights of Eric Ambler
  
  
• Let us help you, Alan--if Random House won't
  By A1IZMDLAIAZ3UE on 2006-07-01
  I have to agree with everyone who found The Foreign Correspondent a listless rehashing of increasingly shopworn characters and effects. Carlo is Casson without the freshness or depth. The scene at Henninger's, featuring protagonists of earlier and better novels, is a joke on the reader. Doesn't Furst have an editor? Or does his ms. go straight to the printer? Here's an idea: if Random House can't afford to provide Furst with an editor's advice, why not show the draft of his next novel to 20 typical readers? I'm sure the result of such a process would be a book in keeping with what we all know Furst is capable of. What do you say, Alan?
  
  
• Beautifully understated pre-WWII spy story
  By A680RUE1FDO8B on 2006-08-31
  No one writes about Europe in the years just before World War II as beautifully and evocatively as Alan Furst. These are spy stories, but not of the James Bond variety.
  
  Furst' spies are ordinary people. They undertake dangerous missions against fascist Germany and Italy because they love their own countries, a patriotism that would be lost on far too many Americans today or, for that matter, Western Europeans as well.
  
  These are ordinary men and women who love their homelands even though Furst novels, they have often been forced to leave them. They also love freedom and are reluctantly willing to sacrifice their lives in pursuit of it.
  
  Furst novels are not filled with physical action. There is little in the way of thrilling chases; almost nothing in the way of rip-roaring gun battles, martial arts melees or any other kind of violence.
  
  Furst excels in painting the gray mood of Europe in the 1930s. People in France and Britain moved about in willful ignorance, believing they could wish Hitler and Mussolini away. English students signed declarations that they would not fight for their country. The French public allowed their elites to create the fractious political environment that would see France defeated in weeks in 1940.
  
  Meanwhile, some people fled Germany and Italy, seeking a safe harbor while at the same time fighting back. Carlo Weisz is one of them. The scene is Paris in 1938. Weisz has fled Italy, works for Reuters in Paris and helps publish an underground resistance newspaper which is distributed in Italy.
  
  Furst beautifully captures the hopes of the refugees, that their tiny resistance newspaper will keep ignite the fight against fascism (which was actually lost in 1922), knowing all the time that their efforts are futile. Furst paints sad portraits of the emigre existence; the chemist eking out a living now as a clerk in a department store; the former lawyer reduced to a clerical job. The Italian secret service, OVRA, murders one of this group to send a message: do not resist.
  
  Carlo Weisz, bit by bit, is drawn into the orbit of the British SIS. Along the way, while covering the Spanish Civil War, he meets another Italian, a soldier who is fighting the fascists in Spain. Weisz covers events in Berlin as well, where he rekindles a romance with a former, now married, lover who, conveniently enough, is an anti-Nazi.
  
  Furst does not hurry his story along. The pedestrian plotting adds to the oppressive atmosphere as Furst' characters - along with millions of others - are drawn inexorably to their destinies.
  
  Weisz finally has no choice but to risk a return to Italy where he is a wanted man.
  
  The story is slow, deliberately so. The characters are finely drawn. There are no happy people in a Furst novel. The plots are fairly intricate, but there are no holes to jar the reader.
  
  Furst is a master of this period, his stories guaranteed to make the reader feel sadness for nearly every one of the ordinary people who are the "good guys" in his novels, but also a sense of awe for their willingness to fight for freedom even when the odds appear impossible and the battle hopeless. A fine author, Alan Furst is.
  
  Jerry
  
  
• The best of all his books.....
  By AI0GFPI25VG6O on 2006-10-11
  I have read all of Alan Furst's novels. It has been nearly two years since his last novel so that may be influencing my opinion. I found this to be his best book. I just finished this book and then read Philip Kerr's newest novel and found this book much better. I think his character is again believable and yet still a hero. There is no tie in with his previous novels so you don't have to read his earlier books first. If you are new to Alan Furst grab this book it's probably his best.
  
  
• A minor entry in the Furst canon
  By A3P8WRZSOTH3QF on 2007-02-22
  I look forward to new novels by Alan Furst more than those by any other writer. However, I've just re-read The Foreign Correspondent and I still feel it's the least satisfying of his works. Furst seems to be fallng ever more in love with his descriptions of the ambience of pre-war Paris, to the point where passages of the novel read like self-parody. For example, there's a somewhat cringeworthy scene set at the restaurant which features in all his novels; it has cameos from characters who had more or less major roles in several of his previous works and adds nothing in terms of plot or character development. What is missing from The Foreign Correspondent is any sense of urgency. I'm reminded of The World at Night, which had a similar slight air of aimlessness but to Furst's credit he came back suberbly after that with Red Gold. Those two novels are extremely satisfying if read as halves of one complete work so perhaps Furst will return to the protagonist of The Foreign Correspondent and develop a plot around him which is the equal of his excellent characterisation
  
  
• As always
  By ARHW5D45245NY on 2006-07-14
  Alan Furst creates a spy world so real that, although I never knew pre-war Europe, reading of the events and places feels like remembering them. Not as long or strong as some of his previous works, "A Foreign Correspondant" is none the less a wonderful read and a great adventure.
  
  
• Quite disappointing
  By A40N5P6DG7FOL on 2006-07-18
  Alan Furst most certainly knows pre-war Europe and is adept at describing it in rich detail so vivid that it makes you feel like you're right there in the middle of it. In this case it's mostly Paris, and also some Berlin and Italy. Unfortunately, Furst seems to have forgotten to write much of a story. The environment is realistic and convincing, but there's just not much happening in it.
  
  Almost nothing suspenseful or intriguing happens in this story until nearly three-fourths of the way through it. Then what does finally happen still isn't very suspenseful or intriguing and never amounts to much at all. I know Furst is capable of writing better stories than this (see Night Soldiers), but this is the third novel of his that I've read, and so far he has struck out twice (see The Polish Officer).
  
  So why do I keep coming back for more when two of the three Furst novels I've read have been so disappointing? I suppose it's because Furst does such a convincing job of creating the setting for his stories. With a foundation like that, he's bound to get the story right from time to time. But if I don't find another one that I like soon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up on him.
  
  Is this book worth buying? No, not in my opinion. But if your local library has it available and you don't have high expectations about a great story, you might like it okay.
  
  
• Wonderful espionage fiction
  By A22GT376XZG1C1 on 2007-02-02
  As an espionage fiction fan, I own almost all of Alan Furst's novels. With a deft hand, he brings to life the people and places of pre-WWII with just enough noir atmosphere and subtle, fatalistic humor to keep me reading again and again.The prose is always just right and the stories compelling. I wish there were more espionage authors like Furst to read in between his book releases.
  
  
• Back To His Old Form
  By A201HJIF05HBRN on 2007-06-01
  This is the best novel Alan Furst has written in a long time. His first three serious novels, Night Soldiers, Dark Star, and The Polish officer, were terrific thrillers, in which he created a new mood and style for novels of intrigue. Set mostly in Western Europe in the thirties and early forties, the three books give a living, immediate feeling for the time and place as the stories unfold.
  
  His later books have been disappointments, parodies almost, of his earlier stuff. Containing little but atmosphere, with characters so cynical and world-weary they can barely rouse themselves to finish sentences, the books have been unmemorable.
  
  But now, with The Foreign Correspondent, some life has come back to Furst's writing. As with many of his books, the story begins in pre-war Paris. An Italian journalist, Carlo Weisz, is headquartered there, working as a correspondent for Reuters. Also, Weisz and a small group of expatriate Italians are producing an underground anti-fascist newspaper, Liberazione, which is written and edited in Paris, then secretly printed and distributed back in Italy. Because of this, Weisz and friends become the target of agents of Mussolini. Intrigue and peril follow, with side trips to the Spanish Civil War and Nazi Berlin, both places Furst has taken us before, and with the story winding to an ultimately satisfying conclusion.
  
  I think my pleasure in this book would have been unconditional if the part about Weisz's girlfriend in Berlin hadn't been basically recycled material from earlier books, notably Dark Star. Also, enough with the "So then"s .
  
  
  
  
• Back In the World of Shadows
  By A9ANMVCEOQ8P7 on 2006-06-11
  "The Foreign Correspondent" is Alan Furst's ninth exploration of the slide of Europe into World War Two. As usual, the novel is not a direct sequel to any earlier book, although some familiar names crop up as minor characters in the present book (and there is a trademark pilgrimage to Paris's Brasserie Heinenger). This time, the focus is on a group of exiled anti-fascist Italians in 1938 France, although the action shifts at times to Spain, Germany, and Italy itself. As always, a Furst novel abounds in atmosphere, the narrative cloaked in night and shadows, fitting for its description of activities in the murky borderlands of espionage and inernational intrigue. The central character this time around is an Italian journalist, although his nationality is primarily the consequence of shifting boundaries in the aftermath of World War One -- he was born in Austro-Hungarian Trieste, and it was only an accident of history that turned him into an Italian. And being a journalist of anti-fascist tendencies, he immediately becomes an object of interest to various intelligence organizations as Europe slowly falls over the cliff of open warfare.
  
  Reading a Furst novel is almost a visual experience, the author's descriptions of place and time being so persuasive.
  
  
• Please say the book contract is complete?
  By A39E4F8Z6XZCJP on 2006-06-19
  This book is yet another lazily plotted Furst disappointment and it joins the last two in return-to-seller. Reading it, you get the impression that old research pieces are reviewed for re-use and then cobbled together in a haphazard sequence of non-events. Where is the writer of the earlier books?
  
  
• Boring and lacks of depth
  By A31JGONCF9B548 on 2006-06-20
  The charaters are very thinly defined. The relationships between people are stretched and unconvincing. Nobody in the novel is really engaging. Furst also failed to give any unique prospect of the society during that era. It is a disappointing book.
  
  
• where's the plot? where's the characterization?
  By A1GWTME9MIE72M on 2006-06-25
  The reviews for this book range from 1 star to 5, with what to me are surprising raves. I found it a plodding book that never comes to life; I can't think of a single incident that has tension and the plot is very thin. The writing is pedestrian. There is no sense of psychological complexity in any of the characters. The hero is a cipher walking through a simple storyline. I suspect that many people who like the book do so because of its period piece flavor of European cities just prior to World War II and for its coverage of the historical events leading up to it. But these, too, are presented with no sense of tension or depth - Hitler as a bit part walk on, and Mussolini much talked of but never brought to life.
  
  It's not a bad book -- would that it were and one could at least shudder at Sheldonesque melodrama and hyper-purple prose. Instead -- for me at least -- it's just a bore and one of the rare books that I gave up on, around page 204 and then jumped ahead to the denouement; I didn't seem to have missed much.
  
  
• Furst at his best
  By AFSDOEM2R35GR on 2006-07-10
  Mini-Review: "The Foreign Correspondent" by Alan Furst
  
  My friend, Terry Cowman, has excellent tastes in literature, so when he told me a few years ago that he was surprised that I had not already become a fan of Alan Furst, I was intrigued, and eager to find out what I had been missing. So, I quickly read a couple of his novels, and was hooked! I was thrilled to learn that he has just publish a new work entitled: "The Foreign Correspondent."
  
  Not that Terry Cowman's opinion needed any ratification, but I have been interested in the reaction of people when they notice me reading a Furst novel. Boston is a peculiar city in terms of literary tastes and practices. I observe more people reading in public in Boston than in most American cities - equivalent to what I have observed in London and Moscow. It is not uncommon, in my experience, to have someone on the T or in a coffee shop, look to see what work I am reading, and then either to smile knowingly, offer a "thumbs up "of approval, or make a verbal comment about the book or the author. Just yesterday at Copley Place Mall, a woman saw that I was reading Furst, stopped in her tracks and said with a grin: "He's a great writer, isn't he!"
  
  The New York Times calls Furst "America's preeminent spy novelist," and in my view, he comfortably takes his place in the pantheon occupied by Jean Le Carre, Charles McCarry and precious few others. He transcends the genre of "spy novelist" by touching on romance, history and mystery. This novel is a celebration of the WWII literary resistance fighters - émigrés from Italy who used Paris as a base of operations to chip away at the power of Mussolini and Hitler. The action centers on the attempts by a motley crew of Italians, led by Reuter's correspondent, Carlo Weisz, to publish an underground newspaper, Liberazione. The paper is sporadically written in Paris and smuggled to Genoa for printing and sub rosa distribution in dribs and drabs throughout Italy.
  
  Each page evoked for me what must have been the sights, smells, sounds and survival tactics in a Paris that awaited the inevitable first volleys of WWII as the leaders of Europe danced their deadly dance of diplomacy, deception, double-dealing and duplicity.
  
  The following passage both captures the life that Weisz led in Paris and also reflects all of the characteristics that I like and admire in Furst's writing style:
  
  "He shed his clothes, down to his shorts and undershirt, hunted through his jacket until he found his glasses, and sat down at the Olivetti. The opening volley sounded loud to Weisz, but he ignored it - the other tenants never seemed to mind the late-night tapping of a typewriter. Of, if they did, they never said anything about it. Typing late at night had near saintly status in the city of Paris - who knew what wondrous flights of imagination might be in progress - and people liked the idea of an inspired soul, pounding away after a midnight visit from the muse." (Page 126)
  
  After finishing this latest work by Furst, I am inspired to fill in the gaps of his previous offerings I have not yet read - works like "The World At Night," "Blood of Victory," Dark Voyage," and "Dark Star." Stay tuned for more reviews to come!
  
  Enjoy.
  
  Al
  
  
• The Foreign Correspondent
  By AQLEM8XOG09I3 on 2006-07-11
  A good, quick, easy read. Although several issues are left unresolved at the end, I understand the spy game is just that way with few clear victories. Therefore, Furst is realisic in not having all the "i's" dotted and all the "t's" crossed.As always his writing style is crisp; has an energetic rhythm; and is suspenseful.
  
  
• a novelette
  By A3SLCJ37EAT9G3 on 2006-08-06
  I have read all of Furst's books numerous times, but this one is a real disappointment. It is more of a sketch of a story than a story. In all of his war novels, the characters drift realistically through love, hunger, and housing problems while doing their part in fighting against totalitarianism. The difference in this book is that drifting dominates while any effort at plot development or the building of suspense is completely abandoned. I'll wait for the next one to come out in paper.
  
  
• Good, if not great, read from Alan Furst
  By A2X29H96X7C3XJ on 2006-12-12
  I'm a Furst junkie and have never read anything of his that I didn't enjoy. "The Foreign Correspondent" is a good effort albeit a lesser one compared to earlier works. Furst's episodic approach effectively pushes the story of an anti-Fascist Italian journalist in pre-WW II France. The book's characters are somewhat more coarsely and broadly drawn than say, "Night Soldiers," and the plot line strains beyond the credible, but the language of "The Foreign Correspondent" delivers in the end. The reader is not to be disappointed.
  
  
• Weak characterizations. Boring ending.
  By AM3NFYTRJ4RSX on 2007-02-12
  It seems that Mr. Furst got bored at the end, even allowing a major typo in this context of getting critical dates mixed up (July 5th coming after July 7th!) and putting his main character where he wanted him to end up without any details of how he got there - details that often made the rest of the novel satisfying. What saves this novel is the solid atmosphere created in the beginning and the mostly-credible dialogue of the characters. But Mr. Furst should really think through what he has to add this genre before going back to this period.
  
  
• Out of the fog
  By A8IPQ1Q1O7YX5 on 2007-06-03
  The novel is well-written and splendidly atmospheric, but has a curious trajectory. In the months leading up to WW2, while Mussolini's Italy is still unaligned, other nations wait to see which way she will go. Swimming in these confused waters is Carlo Weisz, an Italian emigré living in Paris, who works for Reuters by day and edits an antifascist periodical, Liberazione, by night. This makes him a target for the fascist secret police, a person of interest to the French Sûreté, and a potential tool for British intelligence. Furst is incomparable at painting the shifting fog of this gray world, where nothing is quite what it seems, and danger lurks beneath the surface. But as Mussolini signs the Pact of Steel with Hitler and battle-lines are drawn, the fog of uncertainty clears. Although the dangers increase they also become clearer, and at the same time it becomes easier to distinquish an ally from an enemy. The result, from about the half-way point, is to move the action forward more swiftly, but it also becomes slightly anticlimactic, almost too easy. But the book is a good read all the same.
  
  Several reviewers, here and elsewhere, compare Furst to Graham Greene. It is true that several Greene novels inhabit the same half-world that Furst captures so well. But Greene's works are all distinguished by a strong ethical concern, even where this does not emerge explicitly as Catholic theology. Furst's characters are ethical too, in that they are always fighting for what they believe to be right, but they seldom have trouble knowing what right is -- unlike Greene's characters who are typically tormented by moral ambiguity and doubt. To my mind, this gives Greene a dimension that Furst simply does not have; for others, Furst's directness may make him the stronger writer in his own particular espionage genre.
  
  
• Another atmospheric thriller by Alan Furst
  By A3PGGI7A6XCNF1 on 2007-06-06
  I eagerly await each book by Alan Furst, because I know that he will deliver a solid story, populated by believeable characters, and a sense of impending calamity on the eve of World War II in Europe. This latest book is no exception, and I relished every page of it. Mr. Furst likes to include in his works characters and places from his other books, and it's always a delight to meet them again. In this book we have a world weary correspondent working for the literary resistance to Italian fascism, his co-conspirators, a beautiful German woman involved in anti-Hitler plots, and all types of assorted spies, policemen, guards, etc.. The plot moves along, taking us closer to the beginning of the war, but ending before that date. Reading this book will keep you up late into the night to finish it!
  
  
• furst hasn't slipped with this one
  By A2OVTQOKLFKHFN on 2007-06-16
  Although I am a Furst fan, I put off reading this because of lukewarm reviews. I finally read it though, and I loved this book as much as any of Furst's books and the reviews now mystify me. The book has the same great, brooding atmosphere, likable characters, moral complexity, and tense, steadily building suspense.
  
  
• Introducing the Italian Resistenza
  By A37GRFP6VMUXKT on 2008-03-07
  With 'Foreign Correspondent', Alan Furst's renown continues to grow. Furst once again centers his novel in pre-World War Two Paris, but this time his protagonist hails from southern Europe - Italy - rather than France or eastern Europe.
  
  Carlo Weisz is a journalist with the Associated Press (in a time when the AP was still a very big deal) in Paris where he has landed after fleeing Mussolini's Fascist Italy (absurdly Fascist, as one of Furst's character's suggests?). The book opens with a political assassination in Paris and then we find Weisz in the waning days of the Spanish Civil War and where he makes a connection that serves him well while covering the Republicans.
  
  Weisz is also active in publishing a resistenza newspaper that is smuggled back into Italy. As per usual, Weisz is a rather ordinary, if talented, man with good moral instincts. Slowly he is drawn into ever more daring acts of resistance. Along the way he renews a love interest in Berlin just before things go from ugly to intolerable. Weisz seeks to use his career and his underground work to somehow rescue the fraulein from Herr Himmler's Gestapo.
  
  Furst once again uses the backdrop of Europe edging to the precipice of war - Paris, Nazis, the Spanish Civil War, a love affair - to give us another great historical spy novel.
  
  

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