Just Finished Reading: Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst

Europe. 1938. The world is drifting towards war. In Paris, Hungarian émigré Nicolas Morath does favours for his uncle, the diplomat Count Janos Polanyi, favours that include crossing borders under false papers, delivering passports to strangers and passing on information from renegade Abwehr officers to British Intelligence. Everything is bent towards the task of avoiding the coming storm. When Austria falls under German domination the threat of war becomes closer and all parties become desperate. Agents are gunned down on the streets of Paris and no one it seems is safe from betrayal, imprisonment, torture and death. Moving between assignments he barely understands Morath tries to stay alive whilst both the world and his personal life collapse around him.

Those of you who have regularly read my book reviews know that I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. I don’t read his books very often because, as they’re so damned good, I like to space them out a bit as extra special treats. This book, like all his others, is that treat. I can hardly say more than I’ve already said in previous reviews regarding this author. His storylines are so sublime and agonizingly realistic that it is almost too painful to read them. You cannot help but fall in love with even his minor characters. They are beautifully drawn in living 3D. They live, breath and die on the pages in front of you. You cannot help but to care for them. You live inside their heads and in their lives so full of pervasive peril and random death. Furst has an amazing literary gift. He often tells his stories between the lines of dialogue and between the scenes of the plot. More often than not the actual events in the story are only alluded to and never directly referenced. Sometimes results are simply never known or only heard about later through rumour and newspaper reports. Characters simply vanish and are presumed dead. Few things have a beginning, middle and an end. Life, real life, simply isn’t that neat. The messiness of life – especially in the world of espionage just before the Second World War - is brilliantly portrayed in Furst’s books. I have honestly never read anything quite like them. They are achingly good. Not only have I fallen in love with Paris (again) but am developing a growing interest in the history of Europe between the wars. If you want to be bowled off your feet by a haunting tale that will leave you gasping for more then this and other books by Alan Furst are what you are looking for. This is so highly recommended that it’s off the scale. A work of genius.