Just Finished Reading: Dark Voyage by Alan Furst

May 1941. Eric DeHann, Captain of the tramp steamer Noordendam wants to fight for his native Holland but failed to do so before his country was over-run by German forces. But now he is offered the chance to serve in another capacity. Approached by the British his ship is hired to deliver a contingent of commando troops onto enemy occupied Europe. When things don’t go quite as smoothly as expected Captain DeHann leads the surviving assault team back to his ship and safety. So begins the adventures of the Noordendam and her alter ego the Santa Rosa on missions in the Mediterranean and Baltic seas.

Whilst not Furst’s best book to date, this is still an exciting and vivid 2nd World War spy novel. Along with his signature attention to detail and a remarkable feel for time and place the author dazzles with an amazing array of characters – some drawn in a few words and gone in a few pages, others with a rich and deep background full of tragic detail and unfulfilled hopes. As always I was delighted by the seemingly pointless moments of random death and senseless survival. It is the meaninglessness of events that ring totally true. Events are often completely outside the power of the central characters to change or even understand. It is the very nature of the conflict they are involved in that is chaotic. Things happen without rhyme or reason because that’s how things are. Characters meet and part without establishing any real understanding between them yet they often cling to each other in the hope of arriving at some meaning to what is happening around them. It feels as if it must have been like this in the war. Events almost too big to comprehend, and often ignored because of that, help to shape the lives of people caught up in those events. They are not to be understood just lived through. Each character has their strategies for survival. Some work and some do not. But it is not the skill of the strategies that determine the outcome of their lives but, seemingly, fate itself.

Furst writes thoughtful and compelling tales of often ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Often troubled and deeply flawed these characters portray a variety of responses from the entire human spectrum. Identification with aspects of each character is inevitable which draws the reader into situations where you cannot but ask yourself “What would I have done here?” It’s quite staggering how much the lives in his books haunt you for weeks – even months – afterwards as if you are remembering stories of people you knew. Needless to say I really enjoyed this book. I don’t like reading him too often because I always want one of his books on hand just in case I feel in the need for a sure fire excellent read. If you like a good spy novel or just an excellent character driven story I can heartedly recommend this one – or indeed any book by Alan Furst.