Alan Furst

An Autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers'' bar in the city''s factory district, he will meet with the military attache from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins THE SPIES OF WARSAW, with war coming to Europe, and French and German operatives locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attache, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn in to a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amidst an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters - Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence, last seen in Furst''s THE POLISH OFFICER; the mysterious and sophisticated Doctor Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and Mercier''s brutal and vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. And there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.

Alan FurstAlan Fursts 14th novel opens in late 1937, in a Warsaw menaced by approaching war and teeming with spies of every stripe. Among them is Colonel Jean-François Mercier, an aristocratic French military attache and beau ideal of the dashing secret agent. Forty-six years old, his tall frame a palimpsest of war wounds, he is a melancholy widower. Among the many other spies afoot in these pages is German businessman Edvard Uhl, entrapped by a supposed countess into smuggling information on German tank design to the French. Uhls activities come to the attention of some exceedingly unpleasant Nazi secret agents, and his life becomes a problem for Mercier to solve. The only non-spy in this espionage-steeped arena seems to be Anna Szarbek, a lawyer for the League of Nations and Merciers serious love interest The novel moves back and forth between Warsaw and Paris with excursions, among them to the Polish-German border where our hero, creeping through the forest in his waxed Barbour field jacket, observes German military preparations and, later, to the Black Forest, where he witnesses tank maneuvers. Both forays produce evidence suggesting German plans of attack for invasions of Poland and France. If you think Mercier manages to convince anyone with authority to act on his discoveries, you have forgotten your history. What we have here is a thrilling, cleverly plotted re-creation of the sort of hugger-mugger, double-dealing, and wishful thinking that marked the last crepuscular years before full-scale war plunged Europe into darkness.

Paris, 1938. A shadow edges over Europe. Democratic forces are locked in struggle, while in Spain the war has already begun. Cristian Ferrar, a handsome Spanish lawyer in Paris, is a well-connected man. Ferrar is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces and agrees, putting his life on the line. Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies; idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats, including Max de Lyon, a man hunted by the Gestapo, and the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a refined beauty with a taste for danger. From libertine nightclubs in the City of Light to volatile bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare - and the heroes and heroines who fought back.

Spring, 1941. Britain is losing the war. Paris is occupied by the Nazis, dark and silent at night. But when the clouds part, and moonlight floods the city, a Resistance leader called Mathieu steps out to begin his work. The fighters of the French Resistance are determined not to give up. These courageous men and women - young and old, aristocrats and nightclub owners, teachers and students - help downed British airmen reach the border with Spain. In farmhouses and rural churches, in secret hotels, and on the streets, they risk everything to open Europe's sealed doors and lead Allied fighters to freedom. But as the military police heightens surveillance, Mathieu and his team face a new threat, dispatched from the Reich to destroy them all.

Paris, 1938. Democratic forces are locked in struggle as the shadow of war edges over Europe. Cristian Ferrar, a handsome Spanish lawyer in Paris, is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces. He agrees, putting his life on the line. Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies: idealists and gangsters, arms dealers, aristocrats and spies. From libertine nightclubs in Paris to shady bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare - and the heroes and heroines who fought back.

París, 1938. En Viena, los nazis han tomado las calles. El conde Janos Polanyi, diplomático del gobierno húngaro, conspira desde su oficina parisina para evitar que su país selle una alianza con la Alemania de Hitler. Hungria es unicamente un pequeño territorio atrapado entre potencias demasiado poderosas como para permitirse pasos en falso. El conde lo sabe, y para jugar las cartas de su politica clandestina necesita a los aristocratas exiliados, a los politicos britanicos, a los militares alemanes renegados y, tambien, a Morath.

En 1939, cuando los ejércitos europeos se movilizaban para la guerra, el Servicio Secreto británico intentó impedir la exportación del petróleo rumano hacia Alemania. Fracasaron. En el otoño de 1940 volvieron a intentarlo. Serebin, periodista y escritor ruso, romantico y antiheroe, viaja a Estambul huyendo de una Europa en llamas. Alli su encuentro con la fascinante esposa de un diplomatico frances, le conduce hasta el servicio de inteligencia britanico. La mision encomendada, cortar el suministro de petroleo a los nazis, lleva a Serebin y a su amante francesa de los palacios de Bucarest a los prostibulos de Izmir; de un elegante club nautico de Estambul a los muelles fluviales de Belgrado, de las pistas de patinaje de St. Moritz a las orillas del Danubio envueltas en la niebla. Todo el continente es una inmensa red de espionaje. Detras de cada mirada, de cada gesto, de cada sorbo de cafe hay una trampa y Serebin tiene que evitar caer en ella, conseguir llevar a cabo su tarea, herir de algun modo el poder del ejercito invasor.

Autumn 1937: War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-François Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal and dangerous characters -- Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence; the mysterious and sophisticated Dr. Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka and Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; and...

Federico Stahl, una estrella de cine de Hollywood, viaja de Beverly Hills a los bulevares de París. Se trata de un peligroso momento difícil y seductora: Europa está a punto de estallar, y los parisinos viven cada noche como si fuera el último. A medida que avanza el rodaje, Stahl se introduce en un mundo clandestino de los corresponsales extranjeros, funcionarios de las embajadas y espías de todo tipo. Sus compromisos le llevan de los bares de París a los callejones de Marruecos, de un castillo húngaro en la Kristallnacht, y el corazón frío del Tercer Reich. Pero, ¿podrá sobrevivir como agentes alemanes seguirle la pista a través de París? Un clásico inolvidable, y apasionado profundamente, Misión a París es el retrato final de un pueblo en guerra y el libro más panorámica, que se describe con cariño, el mejor y Alan Furst hasta la fecha.

Utterly gripping spy thriller set in the glittering world of European high society, just before the Second World War.

A wonderfully evocative picture of wartime Paris and the moral maze of resistance Mail on Sunday

The next great page-turner from the master of the noir spy novel.

The sequel to THE WORLD AT NIGHT featuring Jean Casson - Casson could become a cult figure - reluctant spy, utterly disreputable THE TIMES

The author of TV Book Clubs SPIES OF THE BALKANS returns with a hugely evocative thriller set in wartime Paris. Includes Reading Group Notes.

From the master of the historical spy thriller, a story set in the heart of the Polish resistance