- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (Aug 27 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375505741
- ISBN-13: 978-0375505744
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #689,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
I.A. Serebin, an émigré writer who heads the International Russian Union and edits its literary magazine, is no stranger to war: "Two gangsters, one neighborhood, they fight," he comments at a dinner party on a yacht in the Istanbul harbor in the autumn of 1940. Istanbul, to which Serebin has come to say good-bye to a dying friend, is a haven for spies, arms dealers, diplomats, and intrigue. Like most of the author's protagonists, Serebin is a romantic, a reluctant hero who tries to believe that war will not really change anything: "Hold fast to life as it should be, the daily ritual, work, love, and then it will be" is his credo. After Paris falls to the Germans, he realizes that is impossible. When a French diplomat's wife, whom he met and bedded on the freighter that brought him to Turkey, puts him in touch with a Hungarian spy working with the British Secret Service, Serebin allows himself to be recruited for a mission to disrupt the flow of oil from Romania's Ploesti fields to German factories--something that has been tried by the British before, without success. Alan Furst, a master stylist whose novels are peopled with characters who remain in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned, evokes Istanbul's smoky, spicy, shadowy atmosphere with the same authenticity he brings to the settings of all his thrillers, most notably Paris. No one is better at describing both place and players in the period just before and during World War II; widely hailed as the successor to Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, Furst proves in his gripping, compulsively readable seventh novel what a contender he is for that title. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Critics who thought Furst's previous novel Kingdom of Shadows lacked a clearly linear plot will find much to praise him for in his toothsome new historical espionage thriller. The novel (named for the Romanian oil vital to the German war machine) describes a daring operation to disrupt the flow of that oil from the Ploesti fields in Romania to Germany by sinking a group of barges at a shallow point in the Danube in early 1941. The motley group attempting this maneuver barely holds together: its members include a sultry French aristocrat, hounded Russian Jews, even Serbian thugs. And while the tale features the same period details as its predecessor, and stretches from Istanbul to Bucharest with detours in Paris and London, it reaffirms the signature Slavic focus of the author's earlier books like Dark Star. This is literally personified in the novel's protagonist, the dogged Russian ‚migr‚ I.A. Serebin, who has to dodge every kind of secret police from the Gestapo to Stalin's NKVD (" `Why, Serge?' `Why not?' That was, Serebin thought, glib and ingenuous, but until a better two-word history of the USSR came along, it would do"). Diehard Furst fans will appreciate the recurrence of several secondary characters from Kingdom of Shadows (especially a certain heavyset Hungarian spymaster). But even newcomers will be ensnared by Furst's delicious recreations of a world sliding headlong into oblivion (wonderfully illustrated by Serebin having to drive a car off a cliff to escape with his life at the climax). Maps.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
ON 24 NOVEMBER, 1940, the first light of dawn found the Bulgarian ore freighter Svistov pounding through the Black Sea swells, a long night's journey from Odessa and bound for Istanbul. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
ON 24 NOVEMBER, 1940, the first light of dawn found the Bulgarian ore freighter Svistov pounding through the Black Sea swells, a long night's journey from Odessa and bound for Istanbul. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining formula,
By
This review is from: Blood of Victory: A Novel (Hardcover)
To be honest, it seems as if when you have read one Alan Furst novel you have read 'em all -at least as far as period & character development. That being said, I enjoy Furst's novel and look forward to each new variation-on-a-theme that he puts out. Basically this book is another "nouvelle-noire" novel if there is such a thing, populated by characters that Bogart would be type-cast playing if we still had Bogart to play them. The period is the early stages of the Second World War, the characters are all a bit jaded-but-on-the-right-side. If you have seen Casablanca as often as I have, you will feel right at home with the mood. In this particular outing Furst's Ur-heroe is supposedly trying to block the transport of Roumanian Oil (the title subject) to Nazi Germany, but the plot kinda wanders around & by the end one doesn't really care all that much about whether he succeeds or not -I guess that is the best part of a Furst novel, one can simply wallow in period & let the action swirl around one. Overall a pleasant diversion for a rainy afternoon.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of His Better Tales,
This review is from: Blood of Victory: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is the first novel that I have read of this author's work in hardcover. "Blood Of Victory", is the newest work from Alan Furst, and it follows the issue of all of his previous novels in soft cover format. I have read all of his tales and have found him to be a very solid, consistent writer. His publisher is amongst the shrillest when praising and promoting his work, and I do not know that this helps. Whether or not Alan Furst joins the ranks of writers like John LeCarre is up to readers not his publicist.All his previous works have included questions for discussion at the book's end; this book does not although I would guess the soft cover will. One of the points that have always been raised is that the protagonist in his books always is alive at the end of the novel. I believe this is becoming a problem for Mr. Furst does not write about the same character in a series of events, rather a variety of characters experiencing events in a common time period. His stories inevitably include great risk to his primary characters, and when he removes the possibility of the mortality prior to the book's start, he removes an element of suspense. Since his genre involves clandestine work prior to and including World War II, the missing element cannot fail to become a handicap. He also has several reference points that he mentions in many if not all his books. While these elements are repeated they are not critical to a given book, but they can cause a reader to feel they are out of step with some crucial detail or event. The plot this time centers on the oil fields of Romania, their critical importance to the German war machine, and the variety of attempts to prevent the flow of oil via the Danube. This issue was very real during both of the 20th century's world wars, and Alan Furst uses these historical events to very good advantage. Mr. Furst has an excellent command of the political history of his chosen time period, and this makes for credible reading that is also well crafted by a talented pen. I have enjoyed his books and will continue to read his work in the future. I hope that he decides to allow for more uncertainty in his work, and by doing so maintain a higher level of tension for his readers.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not Furst's best,
By George Margolin (Evanston, Illinois) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blood of Victory: A Novel (Paperback)
Against a backcloth of WWII in eastern Europe gathers the flotsam and jetsam of a war-torn society - a Russian emigre writer seeking salvation; a French ambassador's wife seeking love; Jews seeking escape; British agents seeking secrets; capitalists of all nations seeking profit; and all seeking to deny Roumanian oil to the Nazi regime of Germany.The plot - perhaps a little labyrinthine in construction - pits Serbin - a Russian émigré writer running the Russian mission in Paris - against all the forces gathered to conspire against him. Eventually, (a little too slowly for my liking) a way is decided to prevent the oil from falling into Nazi hands. And then the action takes off, with Furst skillfully taking us from crisis to crisis which Serbin must face. A thrilling - and prolonged - climax, set on the Danube and along its banks, has the reader turning the pages. But did it have to take so long? No matter. Furst captures the atmosphere of a European world turned upside down, and his dramatic writing drives the reader to the climax. A pretty good read.
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