Dark Voyage

Amazon.com
A new historical espionage thriller by Alan Furst is always cause for celebration, and in his eighth novel, the talented writer who's made a particular time and place his own--Europe on the eve of World War II--takes his fortunate readers aboard the tramp ship Noordendam. Its captain, E.M. DeHaan, is recruited by Dutch Naval Intelligence to smuggle arms and spies past the watchful eyes of the German Navy. Like most of Furst's protagonists, DeHaan is at first a reluctant hero, certain that disguising the Noordendam as a Spanish freighter flying the flag of a neutral nation that won't attract the attention of the Nazi authorities will never work. The plot takes DeHaan, his crew and a handful of passengers that include a refugee family, a beautiful woman, and a mysterious Russian through the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean, the North Sea, and the Baltic. Putting DeHaan ashore in the exotic port cities affords Furst an opportunity to evoke the sights, smells and atmosphere of Alexandria's waterfront alleys, Lisbon's intrigue-filled cafes, and Tangier's shadowy souks, which he does with consummate skill. Maintaining a measured but never lagging pace, Furst takes the Noordendam on its final dangerous voyage past the Baltic Fleet in a tour de force by a writer who's inherited the mantle of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene and wears it as if it had been custom tailored for him. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
It's no secret by now that Furst is a superlative chronicler of World War II, and his new novel is a splendid addition to an accomplished body of work that includes The Polish Officer and the bestselling Blood of Victory. His mastery of the atmosphere of that era—its brusque heroes and heroines, its sudden explosions of violence, its strange black glamour—is the fruit of tireless research and an empathetic imagination. His hero this time around is a blunt Dutch sea captain, E.M. DeHaan, whose sturdy but aging merchant vessel is pressed into service on behalf of the British Navy by the exiled Dutch naval intelligence group in London. Disguising his boat as a neutral Spanish freighter, DeHaan somberly and grudgingly takes it several times into harm's way, ferrying British commandos on a North African raid, taking munitions to the beleaguered British garrison on Crete and then, most dangerous of all, on a secret mission to Sweden's Baltic coast. The marine details are so authentic the reader can smell the oil and the brine, and the characters who come aboard and into the captain's life—a valuable Polish naval officer in exile, a Jewish refugee who becomes the ship's doctor, a Russian woman journalist fleeing the Soviets, with whom DeHaan enjoys a brief and dry-eyed romance—are sketched with concise brilliance. The book casts such a spell with its exact evocations of time, place and language that one could swear Furst was a Brit writing out of his own experience in 1941 rather than an American writing today. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Dark Voyage is the eighth book by acclaimed novelist Furst, whose writing plumbs the territory of war-torn Europe prior to America’s involvement in WWII. Many critics agree that Dark Voyage is Furst’s best to date. Atmospheric, nuanced, and rich with complex characters, this book transcends the well-worn formulas of genre novels. Captain DeHaan is an interesting mix of intellectual and adventurous, witty and “decent”—a man worth rooting for—and the rest of the unique cast also enlivens the novel. With a few exceptions, most critics praise Furst’s writing style as sophisticated, yet never off-putting. Most aficionados of historical wartime thrillers will love this book—and it’s likely other readers will, too.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* It's taken Furst longer than it should have to attract a wide audience, but the acclaim is growing steadily now for his series of historical spy thrillers set in the early days of World War II and featuring a beguiling assortment of unlikely secret agents--Parisian filmmakers, Russian writers, Hungarian emigres. Fitting the mold perfectly is E. M. DeHaan, the captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordenham, a ship without a home since the Nazis invaded Holland. It's 1941 when DeHaan accepts--with that familiar Furstian sense of shrugging inevitability--his new assignment: disguised as a Spanish freighter, the Noordendam will be deployed on secret assignments for the British. So the table is set for another serving of Furst's specialty: the shadowy world of clandestine, anti-Nazi operations performed by a band of no-nonsense individualists. As always with Furst, setting conveys both mood and meaning; here, it's a series of neutral or semineutral ports of call--Tangier, Algeciras, Lisbon--that provides the shadows and infuses the action with that ambiguous uncertainty of motive in which Furst's people thrive. The difference this time is that the star of the show isn't DeHaan or his crew or the assortment of fugitives that surrounds them (imagine Peter Lorre and the usual suspects); no, the star--and the quintessential Furst hero--is a ship, the Noordendam, a tramp in every sense of the word, worked hard and forced to work harder, performing tasks it wasn't made to perform, not out of foolish idealism but because it can. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Praise for Blood of Victory

“[Furst] glides gracefully into an urbane pre—World War II Europe and describes that milieu with superb precision.”
–JANET MASLIN, The New York Times

“Densely atmospheric and genuinely romantic, the novel is most reminiscent of the Hollywood films of the forties, when moral choices were rendered not in black-and-white but in smoky shades of gray.”
–The New Yorker

“Furst’s achievement is a moral one, producing a powerful testament to fiction’s ability to re-create the experience of others, and why it is so deeply important to do so.”
–NEIL GORDON, The New York Times Book Review

“Richly atmospheric and satisfying.”
–DEIRDRE DONAHUE, USA Today


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

In his eighth novel plumbing the shadowy reaches of World War II, Furst (Blood of Victory) introduces DeHaan, a taciturn Dutchman who will lead a merchant marine crew in deeds of thrilling, if unexpected, valor. Within 19 months of the war's start, enemy forces have sunk 1,596 British and other Allied vessels. In a canny campaign to reverse the losses, the Royal Navy's Intelligence Division has enlisted unarmed tramp freighters to haul bombs and other classified cargo to Allied strongholds. DeHaan, whose country has been recently occupied by the Nazis, accepts a secret commission to join the war effort. His crew includes the usual maritime flotsam and jetsam adrift in the eddies of war and one exceptional Russian femme du monde. With profound understanding of the historic panorama, Furst subtly evokes the emotional and mental highs that resided at that time, even within the most ordinary and anonymous of citizens. Fans will not be disappointed by this spare but never terse adventure tale. For every fiction collection. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/04.]-Barbara Conaty, Falls Church City, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices