Descripciones mejoradas de Syndetics:

The acclaimed author of Night Soldiers offers a dramatic and exciting spy thriller of Eastern Europe on the brink of World War II. In the back alleys and glittering salons of Europe, there is a thin line between survival and betrayal, as Soviet NKVD agents and the Nazi Gestapo confront each other in a brilliant duel of espionage. "Like watching Casablanca for the first time".--Time.

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This is an intriguing combination of spy story and historical novel. It is about a Pravda journalist forced to become a Soviet intelligence agent in the years immediately before World War II. It is also about a Europe being driven into war, not simply by supposedly irresistible social forces but by the genuinely evil men who manipulate and direct events. Seen in this way, Stalin is as responsible for the coming of war as Hitler, and Stalin's Russian purges signal the future deaths of millions in Central Europe. Agents in this novel are not just spies but metaphors for the actors, large and small, on the stage of history. Entertaining, exciting, and thought-provoking reading.-- Charles Mi chaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Furst ( Night Soldiers ) will make his mark with this intelligent, provocative and gripping novel. In 1933, Andre Szara, a highly regarded Polish-born foreign correspondent for Pravda , is asked to perform small espionage tasks by the NKVD. These assignments escalate, until Szara finds himself responsible for obtaining vital production figures from a German-Jewish industrialist who fabricates steel wire essential to airplanes. Inevitably, Szara's integrity as a journalist is also compromised. During this period of Stalinist purges, clearly and chillingly described by Furst, only unpredictability is certain. Szara senses the precariousness of his position, which is compounded by an urgent appeal from a wealthy Jewish Frenchman for Szara to honor his own Jewish heritage by trading his steel wire information to the British in exchange for desperately needed immigration certificates to mandated Palestine. Furst depicts the historical, geographic and political context in lucid and highly readable prose; his observation that Russia annexed Lithuania and Estonia while the world's attention was focused on France's struggle with Germany has an eerie timeliness. As darkness descends over Europe, Szara clings to life while simultaneously attempting to make some meaning of it. His story is not a pretty one; but it is beautifully and compellingly told. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Furst's excursion into the activities of the Soviet intelligence apparat during the late 1930s offers a brilliant and intimate historical profile of Europe on the brink of war. With a sure hand for character development, Furst tracks the career of Pravda journalist Andre Aronovich Szara, whose increasingly complex "small favors" for the NKVD gradually undermine his job as a foreign correspondent and turn him into a full-time spy. Struggling to negotiate a path through a hazardous maze of traitors and power brokers, Szara undergoes a personal struggle for survival that mirrors the conflict taking place on a larger scale among governments. Readers who like their spy fiction realistic and gritty will welcome Furst's latest effort. The author has retained continuity with characters introduced in his previous book, Night Soldiers (Houghton, 1988). Highly recommended. ~--Elliott Swanson

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Furst received a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1962 and an M.A. from Penn State in 1967. Before becoming a full-time novelist, Furst worked in advertising and wrote magazine articles, most notably for Esquire, and as a columnist for the International Herald Tribune His early novels (1976-1983) achieved limited success. However, the 1988 publication of Night Soldiers inspired by a 1984 trip to Eastern Europe on assignment for Esquire revitalized his career. It was the first of his highly original novels about espionage in Europe before and during the Second World War. Born in New York on February 20, 1941, he lived for long periods in France, especially Paris where he was awarded a Fulbright teaching fellowship. In 2011, the Tulsa Library Trust in Tulsa, Oklahoma selected Furst to receive its Helmerich Award, a literary prize given annually to honor a distinguished author's body of work He also made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2012 with his title The Mission to Paris and Midnight in Europe in 2014. Furst again made the New York Times Bestseller in 2016 with his novel a Hero of France.

(Publisher Provided)