Midnight in Europe

Night Soldiers #13

by Alan Furst

Paris, 1938. As the shadow of war darkens Europe, democratic forces on the Continent struggle against fascism and communism, while in Spain the war has already begun. Alan Furst, whom Vince Flynn has called “the most talented espionage novelist of our generation,” now gives us a taut, suspenseful, romantic, and richly rendered novel of spies and secret operatives in Paris and New York, in Warsaw and Odessa, on the eve of World War II.

Cristián Ferrar, a brilliant and handsome Spanish émigré, is a lawyer in the Paris office of a prestigious international law firm. Ferrar is approached by the embassy of the Spanish Republic and asked to help a clandestine agency trying desperately to supply weapons to the Republic’s beleaguered army—an effort that puts his life at risk in the battle against fascism.

Joining Ferrar in this mission is a group of unlikely men and women: idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats and spies. From shady Paris nightclubs to white-shoe New York law firms, from brothels in Istanbul to the dockyards of Poland, Ferrar and his allies battle the secret agents of Hitler and Franco. And what allies they are: there’s Max de Lyon, a former arms merchant now hunted by the Gestapo; the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a beautiful aristocrat with a taste for danger; and the Macedonian Stavros, who grew up “fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” Then there is Eileen Moore, the American woman Ferrar could never forget.

In Midnight in Europe, Alan Furst paints a spellbinding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare—and the heroes and heroines who fought back against the darkness.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, World War II, Mystery, France

Hardcover

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Alan Furst is widely recognized as the current master of the historical spy novel. Born in New York, he has lived for long periods in France, especially Paris. He now lives on Long Island.

Night Soldiers novels
* Night Soldiers (1988)
* Dark Star (1991)
* The Polish Officer (1995)
* The World at Night (1996)
* Red Gold (1999)
* Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
* Blood of Victory (2003)
* Dark Voyage (2004)
* The Foreign Correspondent (2006)
* The Spies of Warsaw (2008)
* Spies of the Balkans (2010)
* Mission to Paris (2012)
* Midnight in Europe (2013)
* Under Occupation (2019)

Stand-alone novels
* Your day in the barrel (1976)
* The Paris drop (1980)
* The Caribbean Account (1981)
* Shadow Trade (1983)

For more information, see Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Wouldn’t it be a better world if people revealed themselves? Did what they secretly wanted? ‘I know you want to kiss me,’ she said. ‘What are you afraid of?’ So he locked the door and they went ahead with it, his hands exploring her...She stood, removed hat and dress, then...suddenly self-conscious, ‘Would you look away for a moment?’ He did, discovering a perfect image of the dimly lit compartment in the dark window as she wriggled out of the girdle, freeing a cascade of soft, rosy flesh.”

Parisian Girdle from the late 1930s.

It is 1937 and Christian Ferrar is a Spanish ex-pat living in Paris making a very good living working as a lawyer for a prestigious firm. The Spanish Civil War is going on and times are desperate for the Spanish Republic as Axis troops from Germany and Italy have joined the Francisco Franco Nationalists effort to overthrow the government. Interesting enough the Soviet Union and Mexico are allied with the Spanish Republic. Ferrar has an extended family in France that he is supporting, and so though he wants to go join the fight to protect the Republic it would mean leaving his family impoverished.


I’ve always liked this shot of Hemingway working as a reporter and gathering material for a book in Spain in 1937.

Meanwhile he is enjoying his life in Paris so aptly described by one of his friends.

”The conversation drifted away, to life in Paris and then, as they worked through the second bottle of wine and ordered a third, to nightlife in Paris; nightclubs high and low, and brothels catering to every imaginable inclination…. ‘The Parisians are worldly in these matters,’ he said. ‘They believe that with money, all things are possible. They accept the reality of the human appetite, and the reality of markets. Here, one can have whatever one can pay for. I have always admired their point of view.’”

Ferrar is offered the services of a high class madam who has a stable of aristocratic women indebted to their dressmakers, but he prefers his lovemaking infused with passion.

”No, I like love affairs, a woman’s desire is the best aphrodisiac.”

I would give Ferrar a high five if I could walk into the pages of this book, sit down at the table with him, light a Gitanes cigarette (I would most assuredly have smoked in 1937.), and order myself a gentiane.


Gitanes Cigarette Poster from the 1930s.

The Spanish Republic is in desperate need of supplies, weapons that can be bought from the Soviets, but must be moved by ship and train through German controlled territory to Spain. (Danzig or Gdansk, a city with an interesting history.) Ferrar is asked to be a broker to help move those much needed weapons to his friends in Spain. His predecessor, a museum director, did not fare well. One of the issues for the Republic is that they don’t have a professional spy organization and so have to recruit amateurs to be those valuable facilitators to keep the war effort alive.


Iconic Robert Capa photo of a Falling Republican Soldier.


Ferrar meets people, some working for the cause and some selling information to whoever is willing to pay. I particularly liked the description of Professor Z.

”Finding Professor Z was not hard; he was sitting on a bench at the foot of a staircase beneath an ivy-covered pergola, reading a French novel. When he looked up and saw de Lyon, he kept his place in the book with his finger, and there it stayed for the length of the conversation. The professor was wearing a battered old chalk-stripe suit and had the sort of beard worn by men who don’t like to shave but don’t like beards either; a scraggly growth, brown and gray, chopped back when it grew too long. He was smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder and was, apparently, a chain-smoker--there were more than a few squashed-out butts on the brick cobblestones by his feet.”

Haven’t we all been in that position with our finger in a book waiting for someone to stop talking to us? Books always play a part in Alan Furst novels. Ferrar’s girlfriend in New York is a librarian by day and a lurid pulp fiction writer by night. Furst’s characters generally are readers and Ferrar is no exception. When time drags he picks up Robert Byron’s book The Road to Oxiana which is still considered one of the classics of travel writing about the Middle East.

Lose yourself for a moment along with Ferrar in Persia in 1933.

”The day’s journey had a wild exhilaration. Up and down the mountains, over the endless flats, we bumped and swooped. The sun flayed us. Great spirals of dust, dancing like demons over the desert, stopped our dashing Chevrolet and choked us. Suddenly, from far across the valley, came the flash of a turquoise jar, bobbing along on a donkey. Its owner walked beside it, clad in a duller blue. And seeing the two lost in that gigantic stony waste, I understood why blue is the Persian colour, and why the Persian word for it means water as well.”


Robert Byron, a writer who died way too young.

Alan Furst has a talent for infusing his atmospheric novels with elegance, sensuality, anxiety, sacrifice, and cleverness. His characters, generally, are common people placed in uncommon circumstances who sometimes have to choose between loyalty or survival. Things go wrong. Sometimes luck is as important as skill. His characters are learning the rules of the game on the fly and the penalty for losing is best not thought about. There is a stylishness that I really appreciate in a Furst novel. He places me back in time, a time that was full of danger and possibilities. A time when a beautiful countess might be the love of your life or she might be the one who tries to kill you. A time when criminals are useful and crimes have new definitions. A time of changing alliances and trust is a difficult commodity to earn. A time when a man might save the world and the world will never know it.

I highly recommend his Night Soldiers series. They all work fine as stand alone novels so no need to read them in order. I was first introduced to Furst with The World at Night so I have a soft spot for it. I believe that universally The Polish Officer is considered one of his best. I won’t disagree with that assertion.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 4 stars
I read this library book in 2 days. It is a taut, suspense filled story of spies in Paris, France, in the winter of 1937-38. It is obvious to most people that the Spanish Civil War is just a prelude to a European wide war. The main character is Christian Ferrar, a Spanish émigré and lawyer for a prestigious Paris law firm. He is approached by the Spanish Embassy for assistance in buying arms, desperately needed by the Republican army. He agrees to help and is soon enmeshed in a world of spies and counterspies. How he manages to survive is a thrilling tale, told by a master of the genre. If you like Eric Ambler's spy stories, then you will like this series.
One quote on Spanish pastries available in France:
"At one time, pastry in Spain had been baked and sold in convents, so the names of the little treats came from those days. Ferrar bought huesos de Santo, saints bones, tetas de novicias, novice nuns' breasts, and suspiros de ninja, nuns' sighs.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got a pretty good fix for my addiction to this loosely connected series. Now up to 13 books known as “The Night Soldiers” collection, they all take place in the last few years before France is invaded (May 1940) and feature relatively ordinary people become extraordinary by getting involved in actions to slow the impeding takeover of Europe by the fascists.. France is usually a setting for much of the action, but the plots spread the narrative to peoples and locations in other countries which vary from book to book (e.g. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria,the Netherlands, Greece). Here our hero is a Spanish transplant to Paris, Cristián Ferrar, who works for a large international law firm. He gets drawn into an arms supply scheme to help the Republican forces fighting a civil war against the military takeover by Nationalists led by Franco.

As a lawyer who frequently travels around Europe for corporate clients, Ferrar is a logical candidate to facilitate financial dealings on arms deals on behalf of the Republic. But France is technically neutral, and an embargo is in place on direct shipments. Shipments through neutral countries often get intercepted. In contrast with Russia’s inadequate efforts to support the Republic, the Nationalists are well supplied by Hitler and his Luftwaffe dominates the skies. Their besieged forces continue to hold big cities like Madrid and Barcelona, but most of the country has been taken. Ferrar wants to help, and the espionage division of the Spanish embassy in Paris encourages him to take on the task of finding a source and directly managing the purchase and shipment of tons of anti-aircraft shells. There are definitely some thrilling parts where Ferrar has to engage criminal elements in his task and orchestrate clandestine activities in Berlin, the Polish port of Danzig (now Gdansk), Istanbul, and Ukraine. German spies work hard to sabotage their schemes, and Ferrar is concerned over whether his new lover, an exiled Spanish marquesa, might be working for them.

For those like me are a little fuzzy about the human cost of the Spanish Civil War, I pull this thumbnail sketch from Wikipedia:
The war was cast by Republican sympathizers as a struggle between tyranny and democracy, and by Nationalist supporters as between communist and anarchist "red hordes" and "Christian civilization". Nationalists also claimed they were protecting the establishment and bringing security and direction to an ungoverned and lawless society. …Death totals remain debated. British historian Antony Beevor wrote in his history of the Civil War that Franco's ensuing "white terror" resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people and that the "red terror" killed 38,000. Julius Ruiz contends that, "Although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone, with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain"..

As usual, Furst achieves in me as a reader of this book a marvelous sense of presence in this time and place of momentous significance. The prose becomes invisible, and you can’t help but be transported by the atmospherics. I believe Furst’s tales to be quite realistic and not over dramatic or romantic about his favorite theme of citizens from various walks of life moved to become secret soldiers and volunteer spies. People hooked on espionage thrillers will likely be disappointed with the limited scope of the action of Furst’s lead characters. But their plausible heroism still moves me. Unlike le Carré’s plots, Furst’s protagonist characters are not in moral torment or struggling with cynical despair, but merely human in their weaknesses, doubts, and vices. You root for them with sadness over their doomed task to stop the forces of darkness and cling to the currents of nostalgia over the lives and culture destined to be swept away in the coming maelstrom.

To help prospective readers with their choice I share a couple of quotes that speak to the sense of life in the character of Ferrar and some of his bold creativity in his approach to his efforts. His attempts to garner useful help from the cagey representatives of the Spanish embassy in Paris stimulates this reaction:
He had seemed genial and forthcoming, but he was a diplomat and it was his job to seem so. What was the old joke? …”When a lady says ‘no’ he means ‘maybe.’ When a lady says ‘maybe’ she means ‘yes.’ But if a lady says ‘yes,’ she’s no lady. When a diplomat says ‘yes’ he means ‘maybe.’ When a diplomat says ‘maybe’ he means ‘no.’ But if a diplomat says ‘no’ he’s no diplomat.”

To get across the border into Germany, Ferrar and his partner in deception unfolds the following ruse with the security guard:
“What then will you do in Germany?”
“We are here to take photographs for a special issue, to be called ‘Nudism in the Reich.’ It is quite popular in Germany we are told.” It was. In an effort to stimulate the national libido, and thus breed more Germans, public nudity had been officially endorsed. Hitler himself, known to be a great prude in all things, had attended a nude ballet in Munich. …
“Herr Major?” …”Would you care to have a look? I’ve brought along some recent issues.” …”Would you care to keep those, Herr Major? I have more with me.”

This book was loaned as an e-book by the publisher through the Netgalley program.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another terrific story from Alan Furst, who always manages a different take on events that you are vaguely familiar with. Here, a lawyer in Paris gets involved in arms smuggling on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, and in the course of telling the story, Furst presents as clear an understanding of what that war was about as I have read. All of the bad guys - Germany, Russia and Italy - were getting ready for the bigger war to follow while the French and British dithered.

Furst's ability to set a scene - warmly and indelibly - is as good as any author I know. Some authors take paragraphs or even pages to do this; Furst does it, time after time, in a few words. Almost instantly, you are in the setting, seeing and hearing along with the characters, feeling the weather. His scenes of Paris, many of which describe locales I know, are magnificent.

The only complaint I have about "Midnight in Europe" is that it was, at 250 pages, too short. I wanted more.

[Manray9 · Rating 1 out of 5]

With Midnight in Europe Alan Furst is now a good novelist simply going through the motions. His characters are stereotypes and the plots, always his weakness, are more lifeless than usual. He has lost his edge. Frustratingly, Furst insists on patronizing his readers with ham-handed history lessons.

I came across two lines which, if they had been openings, would be contenders for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest:

He believed, deep down where his desire lived, that redheads had thinner skin, so that a single stroke went a long way.

The poetry of lust describes many inspirations: the moon, a stray wisp of hair; but only now and then cites haven't done it for a long time.

The italics are Furst's.

Whew!

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Furst phoned this one in. The characters, settings and dialogue are sketchy and formulaic, even as he explains things any dunderhead would know and repeats plot points in case we missed them the first time. A very disappointing effort from an author who's given me much entertainment in the past. This barely earns two stars.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn! I finished it in one day! Now I have to wait two years for his next one! *sigh* Maybe I'll go reread Night Soldiers or Dark Star. That might make me feel better.

I've always wondered what the Spanish Civil War was really about. No one could tell me. I knew it was a testing ground for Hitler's new weapons, but that's about it. (So, yeah, maybe I'm a dope, but I wasn't really clear on what World War 1 was about either, until my daughter wrote an 11th grade paper about it.)

As he always does, Alan Furst teases apart the tangled threads of the war, explaining and displaying the different sides, then showing you the terrible human cost. Over the course of this brief, intelligent, sexy, and elegantly written novel, it became blindingly clear how this conflict grew into the horrors of World War 2, an extension of the grotesque battle between communism and fascism.

Was this Furst at his best? Well...for that you must read the aforementioned Night Soldiers, or Dark Star, and I would also recommend The Polish Officer. But I confess; I will follow Alan Furst with his supple prose and his very human spies anywhere, into any conflict, any book. I wonder what the next one will be about.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read by Alan Furst and I didn't know it was 13th in a series called "Night Soldiers." It's a suspenseful spy story and I particularly liked it because of its setting--which is Europe on the brink of the Second World War (in 1938). As the title says, it's "midnight in Europe." Actually, the shooting has already begun--in Spain, with Franco's forces, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, fighting to overthrow the leftist Spanish Republic. The protagonist is Ferrar, a Spanish emigre in France, who works as a lawyer for an international law firm in Paris. He decides to help the Republic in the secret effort to supply arms to the Republican army. It's an effort that puts his life at risk.
I'll be looking for more of the books by Furst.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is very hard for me to believe that Alan Furst could write a book that I couldn't finish. But he did. I have loved or at least liked all of his works to date. Such a disappointment.

[Jim Loter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less an espionage thriller and more of a procurement procedural, Furst's latest in the "Night Soldiers" series is downhill even from "Mission to Paris," which I felt was already a marked decline from his earlier novels.

In "Midnight in Europe" we focus on Cristián Ferrar, a Spanish lawyer living in Paris, who becomes involved in an effort to smuggle arms and ammunition to the republicans in his home country. There is very little tension as Ferrar rather openly pursues his aims, announcing his mission to virtually everyone he come into contact with. The only real tension occurs near the end in a marine encounter that feels tacked on.

The novel gets off to a good start with a sort of "cold open" involving a courier named Castillo who is questioned and ultimately executed by sinister Spanish Nationalists. It's only a few pages long, but it's a well-crafted set-piece that nicely introduces the conditions in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. We never experience those (or any) terrifying conditions again.

Furst's novels focus on the Everyman spy - the reluctant do-gooder who is persuaded to take extraordinary risks on matters of principle, justice, and patriotism. This really only works when the protagonist actually has to make sacrifices. Ferrar is barely inconvenienced by his covert work and never directly faces any real danger. He operates from Paris in comparative safety and comfort. He has meetings at night clubs, openly travels throughout Europe, visits his family, has an affair with a Marquesa, conducts business while horseback riding, flies to New York and buys an apartment for his relatives to escape to, and dines at the Brasserie Heininger, the location of Furst's favorite leitmotif - a bullet-hole-ridden mirror above Table #14. All in all, Ferrar seems to be having a pretty swell time while conducting an illegal arms deal more-or-less in his spare time.

With nothing really at stake, it's hard to care whether the arms-running plot succeeds - and even if it does, we all know how the Spanish Civil War plays out. What we really need in these kinds of novels is for the protagonist to undergo some kind of personal transformation or overcome some kind of inner war for which the events unfolding in Europe are merely the backdrop and/or a metaphor. Sadly, Ferrar has no personal arc, struggles with no inner conflict, and experiences no growth. What appears to be a story about a man trying to get a big gun from Russia to Spain turns out to be just a story about getting a big gun from Russia to Spain.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is there left to say about Alan Furst? This novel was not better than the others, nor as good, but I can't call it appreciably worse. Some reviews have said Furst phoned this one in, which I don't agree with, but I think they put their fingers on something lackluster in this book, which I'm more willing to pin on its focus on the Spanish Civil War. That conflict is more complex and less familiar and it's not going to be as easy to use its events and outcome to loom over the story. I did find the main female character in this story particularly frustrating; she gets written out of the story barely ten pages after she is given a backstory and motivation.

Above all, I really wish Furst would try something new. I'll even provide some free ideas in ascending order of difficulty. He should write a book about a protagonist with a wife or family that he is close to, and who are involved and at risk in the spying. (I think he's written some men with families, but they still operated day-to-day like lone wolves. That gives the novels a certain freedom and style, but significantly contributes to their interchangeability.) Or, he should write a book that takes place during the war. Better yet, after the war, since the machinations and choosing of sides at the end must have been just as complicated as at the beginning. Or, he should write a book about a woman, a real woman and not one of the walk-on vixens he usually does. The female protagonist should have her own motives and an actual emotional life that goes beyond adventure and lust. She can't just be the usual male character with breasts, but I can't specify exactly what such a character should be like, because that's the author's job.

Review copy received from Edelweiss.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the best thriller writers?
Rubbish.
This is like the wool basket after the kittens have been playing. A mess.

[C.W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alan Furst's WWII novels read like chilled martinis served on a dark battlefield. His crisp prose and compelling narratives are spare and go down smooth, but their iciness chills the blood as you realize that his protagonists, often idealistic yet jaded men caught up in the snare of fascism, are about to come up against forces far greater than they expect. He never wastes time filling in backstory. From page one, you're drawn into his masterful tales set in isolated corners of a Europe hovering on the brink of annihilation, populated by spies, black marketeers, gilded dames with secrets, night club owners, and blustering arms dealers. Each novel stands on its own: a piece of an overall devastating picture. Where he excels is in creating lasting glimpses into a vanquished world full of flawed humanity, whose choices are never simple, never easy, and of decisions made in a vacuum of historical forethought. For Furst's people, war is a reality, not an abstraction. Every day is another day to survive. What comes next cannot enter their minds because they never know if the future will ever arrive.

In MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE, it's 1937 and Christian Ferrar, a Spanish refugee lawyer living in uneasy Paris with his family, all of whom have fled Spain, is approached by a branch of an office dedicated to ensuring Republican victory in his civil-war torn country. Hitler growls in the distance, his shadow already looming over Europe, and Spain has become a bone of contention, with a non-intervention pact that has allowed Franco's Nationalists free rein. The Republicans' last desperate stand depends on munitions, and Ferrar is asked to assist in the secretive negotiations. Abetted by a Jewish spy / jack of all trades, Ferrar plunges into the murky underworld of arms dealers and Russian subterfuge, while entertaining a marquesa of dubious motivations who needs his legal counsel. Ferrar is a classic Furst hero: not a fighter by nature, but rather a man of good taste and reserve, who can see which way the wind is blowing and hopes to sidestep the impending chaos. But he's also loyal to the ideals of freedom in a time overcome by fascist nationalism, and his journey entails him shedding pieces of himself along the way as he struggles to defend a doomed cause.

The book is deceptively slim and moves at a rapid pace. Furst depicts Paris in all her finery and seediness, a city of elegance and bistros, and back-alley night clubs where shady dealings are par of the course. The jack of all trades, de Lyon, is a wonderful character: wry, unimpressed by humanity's capacity for betrayal, and dedicated to preserving himself while abetting the battle against fascist ideology. While Ferrar is the hero, de Lyon is the heart. Together, they manage to pull off a seemingly impossible feat, with harrowing scenes set in Nazi Berlin, but the price is, as ever in a Furst novel, too high.

The ending too, as always, is a fading, sepia-tinted scene. We never know what will come next, like the people themselves. And that's what makes these novels so addictive. Furst doesn't pander to our sentimental need for stories wrapped in tidy bows. What he offers us instead is a cold drink of reality; and when the glass breaks, its jagged pieces are ours to make of as we will.

[Alex Cantone · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is December 1937. Cristian Ferrar is a Spanish émigré, a multi-lingual lawyer with the law firm Coudert Frères in Paris, his family living in a house at Louveciennes so loved by Impressionist artists. He is in New York for meetings at the branch there and looking for a Christmas present for his girlfriend, aware of the man who has been following him all day. In Madrid another émigré smuggles false documents and money to a woman hiding from Franco’s secret police. On his way back to his hotel he dodges a mortar shell and heads down an alley…

On his return to Paris, Ferrar receives a call from the Spanish embassy, where the diplomat Molina sounds him out for his affiliations. A week later Molina invites him to meet with arms dealer, Max de Lyon, an Eastern European Jew, assisting in the anti-Fascist struggle. Their task is to procure anti-aircraft guns for the Republican resistance, and de Lyon takes Ferrar to a Paris nightclub, introducing him to Stavros.

‘He’s Greek?’ Ferrar said.
‘Macedonian. He spent his teenage years fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.’

Ferrar is swept up in the world of spies, blackmail, bribes and subterfuge. The train journey to Berlin leads to confrontation with the Gestapo; the flight to Poland and freight train to the port of Gdansk; an attractive Marquesa who is not who she seems, but who is there to trust? Artillery needs ammunition, but the ever-resourceful de Lyon has a plan.

‘We work on finding a Russian gang that operates in Odessa … then we figure out how to approach them and, then, how to use them without getting robbed or stabbed in the process.'

Furst’s writing style grabs you from the start and does not let go, but aside from the colourful characters and heart-stopping tension, he describes the seasons and landscapes with an eye for detail.

As February turned to March, the spring rains began to blow in from the west, and some of the chestnut trees at Métro entrances started to bud, forced by the warm air drifting up from the stations below. Parisians found themselves restless and vaguely melancholy for no evident reason, an annual malady accompanying the nameless season that fell between winter and spring.

Highly recommended.

[Yvonne · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Midnight in Europe" begins with a lovely paragraph about snow falling on Manhattan...and then goes downhill. This is not Furst’s exceptional writing, his tense plots, his foreboding atmosphere, his intriguing protagonists, his almost poetic occasional phrases, his settings that transported the reader. Another reviewer said, “Furst phoned it in.” I say it feels as if Furst subcontracted it.
More than a book with a central story, "Midnight in Europe" it is a series of stories, involving the same lackluster protagonist, Cristián Ferrar, who doesn’t act, he only reacts—to phone calls, notes, meetings—he’s pushed and pulled and we never get to know what he feels or thinks. Or we do, when Furst tells us what he has failed to show us, “Ferrar had a big, warm heart, people were drawn to him,” or “A responsive lover, he listened carefully to her breathing.” Alan Furst wrote that? Max de Lyon, not the protagonist, brings a spark when he appears; the reader knows he will have a plan, an idea, something. There is even a time sequence mistake. And don’t even get me started on the dull ending. My husband didn’t even get halfway through the book and we have both read all of Mr. Furst’s books and even went to see him at a Manhattan a presentation. We are fans. Therefore, it pains me to say that since "Mission to Paris," his previous book, he's lost his magic. I hope Mr. Furst takes a year off and recharges his source of inspiration.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Either Alan Furst has lost a step or I've read too many of his books and they're starting to seem interchangeable. Smoky,  Champagne-soaked cosmopolitan Europe, just before the cataclysm of WWII, is as well drawn as ever and sucks me in every time. But the assorted cast of aristocrats, gangsters, whores, bureaucrats, spies, and always at least one brave working stiff with his political heart in the right place, is getting old. As is our stalwart hero, an amateur called, often reluctantly, to the cause of fighting fascism. Usually middle-aged, unmarried, a lover of good wine, fine food and beautiful women, he is this time a Spanish lawyer working in Paris who agrees to buy arms and ammunition to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. As always, there is intrigue, a few tense moments, a hair-breadth escape, and a soupçon of sex. 

Even the titles are getting confusing: Was it "Mission to Europe" and "Midnight in Paris"? (Oh, wait, that was Woody Allen.) And before that were "Spies of the Balkans" and "Spies of Warsaw." 

I initially glommed onto Alan Furst's books because I saw him as a worthy successor to Eric Ambler and I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier works in the "Night Soldiers" series.  But, sad to say, the books have become formulaic in recent years. Maybe that's what a series audience wants -- the predictable and familiar. Maybe that's why I seldom read series.  But I'm hoping Furst digs deeper next time and taps into a more original and creative vein. If not, I'm afraid this will be a fond finis. Dommage.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

not sure what to say about this book as I had many interruptions while reading...I do own the book so I can try it again sometime when not so distracted. It's 1937-8 Europe, and Christian Ferrar, a cool character, lawyer and volunteer to manage the arms purchase and shipment to the Spanish Republic side to save the day is remarkable in many ways but also somehow lifeless to me. How can that be?

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Furst’s books are billed as World War II historical thrillers. The “thriller” label is a bit of a stretch, which is not a knock. (And Furst’s books are usually set just before or early in the war.) His books are character driven, rather than being one heart thumping chase scene or shoot-out after another. Furst’s protagonists are not your stereotypical war heroes. They fight off the battlefield and on the fringe of the war, battling Nazi Germany/tyranny/evil one day at a time, against incredible odds and staying just one step ahead of apprehension. There are plenty of clandestine meetings, train travel, atmosphere, cigarette smoke, fine dining and romance.

All very enchanting, but – and echoing previous reviews - this Furst template/formula is tiptoeing right up to becoming paint by the number repetitive and vanilla dull.

In this novel our hero, Cristian Ferrar, Spanish born – living in Paris, is an attorney working for a French law firm with international clients and connections. Thus he’s perfectly positioned as he “effortlessly” slips into his new endeavor – weapons smuggling; Cristian supporting/supplying his homeland’s Republican government against fascism and Franco.

This “effortlessness” that permeates the book is both the good news and the bad news. On the positive side Furst’s evocative descriptions of time and place – as we’ve come to expect - are excellent. On the other hand, the plotting, even the story itself, lacks any real tension or suspense; challenges/problems encountered along the way – all are solved simply and efficiently within pages – and then it’s on to the next adventure.

(Cristian also “falls in love” several times – which at times gets a tad Harlequin romance-ish.)

Midnight In Europe is an okay and quick “read”, but without the depth and nuance of the author’s earlier novels.

[Thelma Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has Alan Furst spoiled me for Alan Furst? He remains one of my favorite authors of historical espionage. I pre-buy every new volume, although his last book, "Mission to Paris," about a Hollywood actor spying in Europe was the least satisfying. In "Midnight in Europe," the research is impeccable. The prose pristine. The psychological insight astute. The women characters intrigue; the protagonist wise and complicated.

Again we have a chapter from the WWII playbook, a slice that evokes the whole: a sophisticated Spanish-born lawyer living in Paris moonlights in the arms trade in service of the Spanish Republic in 1938. While we know that Franco's fascists won this battle, and that the Nazi's will rise even further in the coming years, Furst builds suspense in the way that small acts of courage build to impact large strategic movements -- or fall by the wayside in futility.

Still, the romantic underpinnings of this particular volume -- between the lawyer and a mysterious Marquesa, and a Manhattan library worker -- seems particularly forced, as if even Furst had tired of creating these couplings. And that could be because I know Furst too well, and found this book a less compelling read than "The Polish Officer," "Red Gold," or "Night Soldiers." Maybe I am ready for Furst to reach back to his Eric Ambler roots and go darker, quirkier, even as his elegant novels gain wider recognition within the literary mainstream.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review also found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher Random House via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is June 10, 2014.

This is one of those stories where I struggle with my comments and opinion....

The book was exactly as advertised. A spy novel with numerous dangerous and sketchy plots in an effort to assist a war effort. Check. Well written and easy to understand. Check. An interesting venture in to a volatile time in world history. Check.

Based on this you would think that I would give it a glowing review. Somehow I cannot. There was just something missing in this story for me and I am not sure I can pinpoint what it was. The characters did not interest me enough to become fully invested and therefore I did feel part of the story as I do with a truly outstanding read. I found the story dull at many times and that in spite of everything that occurred, nothing really happened.

I will caution anyone who may read my review that just because I am not doing cartwheels over this story does not mean that I do not recommend it. I think that this is one of those stories that may not necessarily appeal to everyone however could strongly appeal to some. It seems geared more towards a truly specific genre and doesn't offer a whole lot outside of it.

Although interesting in parts, for me it was just a little on the dull side...

[Bandit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spy novels are not really my thing. Still though I've read and listened to some that were really good and so it isn't a genre I'd deliberately exclude. Plus I do enjoy the historical aspect of them. This book was chosen, like a lot of my audiobook selections, based on the library availability, but it sounds interesting enough. It was in fact, but just barely so. Something about this tale of international agents struggling to get weapons for the Spanish republic army in 1938, specifically one agent, Ferrar and those who help or deter him, just fell flat. The international settings were fun, Europe on the brink of WWII was a sufficiently dramatic backdrop and yet the entire thing felt distinctly disjointed and unengaging somehow. The audiobook narrator did a perfectly credible job and it's quick enough of a listen, but I don't think I cared all that much about it at any point. Maybe proper spy genre fans would like this one more.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring! Boring! Boring! This is a historical espionage/spy novel, but it isn't until close to the end of the book that the action picks up--and even then it's like a big fireworks display that just goes poof...and never becomes what it was meant to be. Until then, author Alan Furst, who is well known and generally praised for this genre, is just setting up the story. The plot is weak and too implausible to be believed, and the characters are all one-dimensional. At best, it's a beach book. But my advice is don't waste your money or your time.

[Heidi]

Abandoned about a third of the way through. Having a hard time connecting with the story. I thought this would be more action packed. The first third is rather ho hum....

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm constitutionally incapable of disliking an Alan Furst book. This one has much of the great sense of place and time, pre-WWII Europe, which are Mr. Furst's strengths. With that said, MIE continues some recent trends in his work which to me, at least, are not positive. First, the mood and menace of his early novels is virtually non-existent here. Yes, there are some close calls, and some risky missions undertaken, but the overall effect is rather light. Second, the protagonist is a well-to-do lawyer in Paris, whose involvement in risky business is pasted on to that of those who are really doing the hard work. One never feels that he has real skin in the game; he's more of a dilettante. By contrast, most of Mr. Furst's early protagonists were relatively ordinary citizens sucked into the Nazi-dominated vortex in pre-war Europe. They were frightened, driven and only a step ahead of capture or worse. This was exciting. Next, the plot involves individuals working in service of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. While this is interesting, it's not gripping, at least not in the same way that living in minute-to-minute fear of the Nazis is gripping. Finally, it seems to me that Mr. Furst, for whatever reason, is spending more time and effort introducing romantic involvements (three in MIE) into his stories. I don't know why. All of them, save possibly one, were gratuitous and didn't advance the plot. Plus, writing romance and sex is not his forte.
It's probably too much to expect continued, much less annual, high quality novels from Mr. Furst. He's written so many, and it must be hard for him to stop when things are going so well for him. I would never begrudge him his success; it's well-earned. Still, books like this are disappointing. I guess we just have to be thankful for his earlier work.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

*ARC*
This is the first Alan Furst book I have read, and I loved it. The plot is so subtle you almost miss it. The gentle storytelling and personal details make the reader feel like they are sitting next to Cristián listening to him tell about his day in the office. When he is finished you think, WOW, that was amazing. The nonchalant way the action happens draws you in and keeps you reading even though you know you need to put the book down and go to bed. This isn't one of those spy novels that is packed with non-stop action and leaves you worn out when you turn the last page, it is a beautiful story of a man pulled into a war and does what he needs to do. Midnight in Europe is a refreshing and intellectual take on the spy thriller genre.

[Kent Babin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Furst is my favourite author, so I find it difficult to review his books objectively. There’s just something about the way he sets a scene that has me hooked by the end of the first paragraph. And I don’t come up for air until I’m done. It’s as if I was a spy in the 1930s, or wished I was.

Midnight in Europe, while maybe not one of his best, ticks off all the boxes of a classic Furst novel: diverse characters facing tough decisions, gritty locales, historical context, sex, even pacing, and a brilliant portrayal of prewar Paris.

What I Liked
The premise — couple of Spaniards trying to procure illegal arms for the Spanish Republic in the 1930s — is fascinating. You can’t help but feel for the two as they get jerked around by pretty much everyone they encounter.

The protagonist, Ferrar, was a lot more interesting than the movie star in Mission to Paris. The grittier the main character, it seems, the more interesting the story.

Furst makes everything seem so plausible. You finish the book thinking “Yeah, that really could’ve happened like that.” There never seems to be a need for sensationalism.

What I Didn’t Like
It was too short. I remember feeling this way about Martin Cruz Smith’s books after Gorky Park. The writing was so good that I didn’t want it to stop.

Having read all of the books in the Night Soldiers series, the descriptions of the Brasserie Heininger do get redundant. It’s featured in every book, so you know the story is going there at some point.

Recommendation
Night Soldiers (the first in the Night Soldiers series) is one of my top 3 favourite books. I can’t recommend it enough if you have an interest in espionage during the first half of the 20th century. Midnight in Europe doesn’t quite reach that level, but it does make a great intro to Furst’s style.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Paris in the run-up to World War II, Furst offers a good spy novel which is one of the few I have seen that is easy to follow.
The main character is Cristián Ferrar who is a lawyer in an international law firm in Paris. An emigre from Spain, he inadvertently becomes embroiled in working for a secret agency which is trying to supply weapons to Spain's army where war has already broken out. There is also a bit of romance in the mix.
Furst creates good characters and is a considerate writer who translates foreign phrases in case the reader is not familiar with languages other than English.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is no doubt that the historical period immediately preceding the outbreak of World War II is very intriguing for a writer of spy story, and in fact Alan Furst, acknowledged master of the field, does not miss the big pot of international intrigue that the time has put in front of him, focusing particularly on the bloody civil war fought in Spain. His characters are an expatriate Spaniard lawyer, an adventurer with name is false as a 3 euro coin, a Polish count, some purebred dogs, a fascinating marquise and a young American girl. Cooking properly, these characters would mean a tasty soup, except that the novel has never managed to convince me. First of all, the character of the Marquise is preposterous: the story holds up well without her, which is weak and as a seductress is a spy. The Polish count is extremely nice, and would have deserved that the author took best use of him, as well as the dogs. The young American woman appears at the beginning and end of the novel, and, apart dragged into a unsuccessful marriage from wich she rid just in time to get back into the arms of her first love, brings no other. The adventurer and the lawyer are in fact the two main protagonists, and the story is based on them to the point to overcharge them with tasks, having the need to give them special powers to escape the unfortunate circumstances in which the author puts them. Particularly hilarious are the seduction techniques implemented by the lawyer against the Marquise.
Even the writing is quite boring.
Thank Random House and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Non c'è dubbio sul fatto che il periodo storico immediatamente precedente lo scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale sia molto intrigante per uno scrittore di spy story, e infatti Alan Furst, riconosciuto maestro del settore, non si lascia scappare il ricco piatto di intrighi internazionali che l'epoca gli ha messo davanti, focalizzandosi in modo particolare sulla sanguinosa guerra civile combattuta in Spagna. I suoi personaggi sono un avvocato spagnolo espatriato, un avventuriero con un nome falso come una moneta da 3 euro, un conte polacco, dei cani di razza, una affascinante marchesa e una giovane americana. Cucinando adeguatamente questi personaggi se ne dovrebbe ricavare un saporito minestrone, se non che il romanzo non è mai riuscito a convincermi. Innanzi tutto il personaggio della marchesa è pretestuoso: la storia regge benissimo anche senza di lei, che è debole sia come seduttrice sia come spia. Il conte polacco è estremamente simpatico, e avrebbe meritato che l'autore ne facesse miglior uso, così come dei cani. La giovane americana compare all'inizio e alla fine del romanzo, e, a parte invischiarsi in un matrimonio mal riuscito, salvo liberarsene appena in tempo per tornare nelle braccia del suo primo amore non combina niente altro. L'avventuriero e l'avvocato sono in effetti i due principali protagonisti, e la storia si regge su di loro al punto da oberarli di incombenze, e dal dover dare loro poteri speciali per sfuggire alle sciagurate circostanze nelle quali l'autore li infila. Particolarmente esilaranti sono le tecniche di seduzione messe in atto dall'avvocato nei confronti della marchesa.
Anche la scrittura è abbastanza noiosa.
Ringrazio Random House e Netgalley per avermi fornito una copia gratuita in cambio di una recensione onesta.

[jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can there be an end of stories in pre-war 1930s Europe worth telling? Alan Furst plainly doesn't think so and to be fair, he continues to entertain. Furst's combination of a fine eye for detail, unexpectedly sharp sense of humor, and ability to conjure the past has helped make his long series of novels a success. That said, it isn't so much the period as the plot which seems to be growing repetitive. With few exceptions, his heroes are all strong men (and they're always men), with a well developed sense of honor, a penchant for heroics, and a habit of getting in over their heads. The women they love are always mysterious and have some secret that the reader eventually discovers. Yet it is a testament to Furst's skill as as a writer that, even if these plots get tired, they never get completely old.

"Midnight in Europe" follows all the classic Furst tropes and comes through as an engaging even at times exiting read. Our hero is a Spaniard, an international lawyer named Ferrer, who lives in Paris and gets caught up in the savagery of the Spanish Civil War. WWII receives lots of attention, but too many are ignorant about the Spanish Civil War. While Furst isn't writing a history book, he does give a taste of that bloody, byzantine conflict which will serve as a good education to many readers. As is usually the case, Furst also gives up lots of characters - real and fictitious -- as well as scenes in cities across Europe.

In the end, however, Furst wraps up the novel a bit too tightly and several subplots just fall away, serving more as false leads than actual parts of the story. While "Midnight" doesn't equal the best of Furst's novels -- I'm partial to "The Polish Officer" and "The Spies of Warsaw" -- it does deliver an engaging read.

[Charles Vella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a big Alan Furst fan. He writes about an interesting place and time and generally comes up with a pretty interesting cast of characters who often find themselves in pretty tough positions. Occasionally his books seem to meander to an end without anything being resolved, but given that is how real life works I've never been bothered by that.

I bought this book as a gift for my wife, who is also an Alan Furst fan. I picked it up and noticed she'd started reading it and set it aside. She couldn't remember why, so I read it myself.

By the end of the first twenty pages or so I had a pretty good idea why she'd set down. I kept going. It wasn't exactly a chore, the prose was good, as always. I finished it relatively quickly, it isn't that long, and when I set it down I told her what I have to tell you, I can't really recommend it.

As I said, the prose is good, but that is all I can really say positive about it. The setting is Paris, where many of Furst's novels are set, but this one seems to be missing the atmosphere that his other novels have. The main character, a successful lawyer, is dull. He gets involved with the Spanish Civil War, steals a train in Poland, and is shot at by an Italian patrol boat, but never seems to be in any real danger. Nothing much happens to him and there's almost a complete lack of dramatic tension.

I have an almost complete set of Alan Furst's novels, and have read many of them multiple times. I doubt I'll be reading this one again though. He is one of my favorite writers, but I think he phoned this one in.