Blood of Victory

Night Soldiers #7

by Alan Furst, George Guidall (Narrator)

In the autumn of 1940, Russian émigré journalist I. A. Serebin is recruited in Istanbul by an agent of the British secret services for a clandestine operation to stop German importation of Romanian oil—a last desperate attempt to block Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Serebin’s race against time begins in Bucharest and leads him to Paris, the Black Sea, Beirut, and, finally, Belgrade; his task is to attack the oil barges that fuel German tanks and airplanes. Blood of Victory has all the heart-pounding suspense, extraordinary historical accuracy, and narrative immediacy we have come to expect from Alan Furst.

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

Audiobook

First published August 27, 2002

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

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though there's a clear pattern and predictability to all of Furst's books, if (like me)you enjoy espionage novels that take place during WWII you can't go wrong with this author. Though the outcome is generally predictable, the route to the outcome is always intriguing. His main characters are always atypical and engaging, and they always side with the Allies against the Nazis so the good guys always end up at least somewhat ahead. But what really makes Furst's novels so much fun is his ability to so eloquently portray the atmosphere of insecurity and instability of the times, and to take the reader deeper into the shadows behind events than he or she may ever have been.

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : Blood of Victory (Night Soldiers, #7) - Nevisande : Alan Furst - ISBN : 297829513 - ISBN13 : 9780297829515 - Dar 237 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2002

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oil is the blood of victory. War has become mechanized. Stop the tanks and trucks from rolling, and you effectively cripple an army and end a war. During WW2, about 60% of German oil supply came from Romania. It got shipped to Germany by tankers navigating the Danube. This book is about a covert effort to interdict the German oil.

At one point in the book, one of the characters says that the British could stop the oil any time, if they really wanted. Their bombers were only six hours away, and they could use them to take out the oil fields. The reason they didn't, according to this character, was Money. Wars come and go, but the monied interests remain. This idea bothered me, so I did a little bit of research about it. It turns out that the British didn't ever try to bomb the oil fields. There were two American raids on the fields, both of them after the events of this book, which takes place before the Americans got into the war, and just before the German invasion of Russia.

The second of the American raids used about 120 bombers. They adopted a radical strategy for the raid, coming in at the target at extremely low altitude - tree top level as some people called it, though it must have been higher than that. The theory was that this would increase the accuracy of the bombing, and might reduce some of the losses from the extreme anti-aircraft defense at the fields. About 1/3 of the bombers were shot down in the raid, and it temporarily reduced supplies from the fields by about 1/3. The raid was considered a major success at the time.

The upshot of my research is I don't know what to make of the failure of the British to conduct such a raid earlier. It sounds like the raid was enormously difficult, even when we had greater air superiority. And we didn't follow up the one raid with others. So my guess is that there were other reasons than Money for not carrying out the raid. And what that means is that the character, who was probably a populist/socialist, was speaking out of his own prejudice, and not simply acting as a mouthpiece for Furst (as I had assumed).

Anyway, attacks on the fields being impractical, the scheme involves sabotaging the Danube to stop or slow down the tanker traffic. That's the objective of the main character, an emigre Russian writer who now lives without a country, but decides that he has to do something to fight fascism. Even though the objective is clear, the means are alway hazy. Everything in Furst's world is covered in shadow. There are betrayals, and betrayals on top of the betrayals, and its hard or basically impossible to figure out who is behind them. And its also very much beside the point.

Rather, the focus is on the efforts of Serebin. He's been stripped of pretty much every attachment he has in the world. And he's left clinging to an idea that perhaps he can do something to hamper the Nazi's. In some ways he's doing this because, without this goal, he has nothing left at all. The atmosphere, as with Furst's other books, is fantastic. Except for the end, the book lacks any action at all. Rather, this world of espionage seems to leap from the dull and plodding, to cataclysm, and then settles back into dull. That doesn't mean the book is boring. What I mean is that the way that Serebin goes about achieving his goal is mostly uneventful, until something shocking or terrifying comes into play. It's driven by the character himself, and not by action.

The only thing I really have to fault Furst with is his consistency. In a few months I will be hard pressed to distinguish this book from the others I've read. They are all very much of a piece. The main characters seem more similar to me than different. The world is grey and shadowy. There's no one and nothing to trust. And I like all of this very much, and yet this time I found myself hoping for just a bit more. Overall, I was very satisfied with this book, but not blown away.

[C.C. Yager · Rating 5 out of 5]

What truly fascinates me about Alan Furst's wonderful obsession with espionage activity in Europe just before and during World War II is the way he shows the efforts of ordinary people, or people you'd never expect to be involved in espionage but who become involved because of the war. In Blood of Victory the main character is a Russian writer living in exile in Paris, who's recruited by an operative in "Bastien's" group -- Bastien turned out to be Janos Polanyi, the Hungarian Count who figured prominently in Kingdom of Shadows and who mysteriously disappeared, believed dead, in that novel. I loved that he turned up in Blood of Victory alive and well and continuing the work he'd begun in the previous book. The title refers to oil which fuels any modern war. The Germans want it, the Roumanians have it, and the Allies want to stop the Germans from getting it. That's the basic story.

But it gets complicated. Of course. And Furst is a master of dreaming up plausible and specific complications, showing just how dangerous it was to be working against the Germans in 1940-41, the period of this book. I. A. Serebin, the Russian writer, becomes the person who does the legwork to set up the operation to deny the Germans their oil, and finally the one who executes the plan, with the help of other ordinary people more than happy to do their part in resisting occupation by the Germans. The British play a quiet background supporting role, helping to bankroll the operation, as well as helping to rescue people needed for it. I love that the Americans are really nowhere to be found...yet. Pearl Harbor will happen only months after this story ends.

People disappear. People die. People get hurt. People fight. Serebin gets into serious trouble more than once. Furst does not shy away from tormenting his characters and hurting them physically. In fact, the action scenes rock in their vividness and clarity. His dialogue writing has improved considerably since his first novel, and he's mastered the memorable minor character of which there are several in this story. Everything about the locations, the times, the action, and the politics behind everything feels authentic and real -- wonderful use of extensive research that is never overdone. There were times while reading this story when I thought that I'd like to learn more about the Balkans and their role in WWII. It is an area of Europe that doesn't usually get a lot of attention.

I loved this book! And I'm looking forward to reading more of Alan Furst's novels. I highly recommend Blood of Victory to any readers of espionage thrillers, war novels especially those focused on WWII, historical espionage, and psychological suspense stories.

[Frank Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is somewhat disappointing in that all Furst books, including this one, have received such rave reviews. Furst is that rare bird who writes solid genre fiction (in his case, World War II spy novels), while seeming to attract the attention of literati types for his well-drawn characters and abilities to convey appropriately ominous atmospherics. But I just don't get the hype.

Even for spy novels this book is somewhat winding and plotless. It concerns the attempts of Ivan Serebin, an exiled Russian writer, and a British-Turkish spy ring to stop the Ploesti, Romania oil fields from contributing their "blood of victory" to the Nazi regime in early 1940. Admittedly, Furst does do a good job of summoning up the feeling of Bucharest, Belgrade, Istanbul, and Paris under war and occupation, but his characters all come across as the moody and brooding types, appropriately quippy and world-weary but with little depth. All of these noirish personalities, a new one seemingly every page, quickly become stock. And as with so many historical novels, Furst can't help but have his characters throw in non sequitur contemporary allusions and background.

So despite his nicely pithy writing style, and his obvious and extensive knowledge of World War II-era Europe, I'm probably not going to be spending more time with Furst.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short on plot, long on atmosphere, and rather oblique. I doubt I'll read another by Furst as I kept finding myself mentally trying to hurry this one along. While some parts were engaging, others seemed self indulgent and contrived. The dialogue was at times disjointed and hard to follow, though I suspect in many quarters that passes for sophistication.

Think if it's atmospheric war tales I hanker for, I'd be better served reading someone's war memoirs or nonfiction, and if it's a thriller I'm after then a Phillip Kerr or Robert Harris book would be a better choice. And then there's heaps of le Carré I've never touched if I'm in the mood for a morally complex spy novel.

However, I was very taken with a quote misattributed to Leon Trotsky that appeared on the online library blurb for this book: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." I was so smitten by this quote that I copied it down, only finding later that it isn't accurate. (Trotsky's quote uses "the dialectic" in place of "war," which is regrettably dry and disappointing. Whether it was Furst or some publicist who came up with the pithier substitution, I applaud it.)

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid Furst spy novel, not his best but neither his worst.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I am reading, I am seeing one of those great 1930's or 1940's movies with an international cast of characters!

This is such a wonderful adventure story in the tradition of the grand romance. The story is a glimpse into the underground networks linking the partisans from east to west. Even though, part of the action takes place in Paris, the bulk of the action takes place in Istanbul, Bucharest and Bulgaria. In addition to the unlikely locales, we also have some unlikely heroes in the characters of Ilya Aleksandrovich and Marie-Galante.
I.A. Serebin is an exiled Russian poet, one of the leaders of the community of Russian exiles which has settled in Paris but has contacts all over Europe. Marie-Galante is the wife of a Vichy government official who is already a part of "the game". At first, Serebin appears to be someone who pragmatically moves with whoever seems to be in power. Serebin is cajoled into participating in a dangerous plot. There is treachery, but the colorful characters he meets along the way have at least a sliver of nobility and a sense of higher purpose.

I am not reading these books in order ... so it will be interesting to see if any characters show up in multiple books!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seemed to me to cross a line between complex-slash-oblique and just plain confusing. I enjoyed the writing, as always, but I felt a bit powerless as the story pulled me from Paris to Istanbul to Bucharest, etc., for reasons that were often quite unclear. On the plus side, I thought Marie-Galante was one of Furst's better female characters. (I do wish he'd try writing a book about a woman sometime.) So this gets only three stars, because I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't recommend it strongly to someone who isn't already a Furst fan. Try Dark Star or The Foreign Correspondent first.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alan Furst has made a sturdy novelistic career out of having mastered the history of WWII in Europe, notably Eastern Europe and Turkey, with pleasant excursions in Paris and sometimes London.

Blood of Victory is a story about a network of anti-Nazi activists attempting to deprive Hitler of Romania's oil. Its hero is a wandering Russian named Serebin. Serebin's lover is named Marie-Galante, who sometimes has to switch roles and attend to her husband instead of helping Serebin do his part in the war. Ostensibly that role centers on assisting Russians stranded abroad, but in fact, he is linked to a shadowy network of subversives who recognize what everyone recognizes: Germany has lots of coal, but not much, if any, oil.

Writing with a degree of historical accuracy that sometimes is astounding, Furst can't be counterfactual. There's no way this novel could end in Hitler running out of gas, but in layer after layer of intrigue, there undoubtedly was an ongoing obsession with bringing that about. HIs trucks, his tanks, and his troops would have been paralyzed, not to mention the Luftwaffe.

Serebin has numerous moody adventures, a lot of patience, a great tolerance for ambiguity, and a great deal of luck, if not a great deal of success.

Furst writes so well that I found myself wondering why his novels don't read at the level of, say, Joseph Conrad. I suppose the answer would be twofold. He writes well, but not with Conrad's awesome precision and authority. And there is something unexplored about a character like Serebin. Why does he take the risks he does? It is simply assumed everyone would do so under the same circumstances? I don't think so. Is it because Serebin has a deep vision of the evil being perpetrated by the Nazis? Again, I don't think so. There is a careless passion about this man that Conrad would have worked up in greater detail. At times he wouldn't fall into the next sequence of action but rather into a period of reflection, uncertainty, fear or bitterness.

The effect in this particular novel is a little bit like what we get in James Bond stories. There is a lot of drama and risk but less emotional impact than we might like...or that I might like, to be more direct.

That said, I enjoy Furst's novels a great deal. He makes the Danube interesting in this book; he captures, somewhat broadly, the role of disparate connivers who'd do anything to stop Germany; he's good at shadows, mists, and darkness.

For more of my comments on contemporary writing, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "Blood of Victory", the seventh of Alan Furst's loosely-connected Night Soldiers novels, we meet I.A. Serebin, a Russian veteran of numerous wars and a writer of some note, making the most of life in exile in the newly occupied Paris of 1940. Serebin is a leader within the IRU - an organization dedicated to serving and suporting the Russian diaspora - and he travels frequently.

One such trip, to Istanbul, finds him in the arms of a beautiful married French woman who may or may not be working against Hitler, but it is when he is nearly killed by a bomb detonated at an IRU meeting house, that the urge Serebin had so-far denied to fight against Germany's military ambitions becomes irresistible.

Soon, at the behest of a Hungarian spymaster, the Russian writer is criss-crossing occupied and soon-to-be-occupied Europe, working to reactivate a long-dormant intelligence network with the ulimate goal of cutting off Germany's access to Roumanian oil - the "blood of victory" the Reich requires to continue its advances. Serebin finds himself exposed to dramatically increasing risk as the weeks go by. Tensions in Europe continue to rise, rebellion within nations that are home to populations sympathetic to Germany make everyday life ever more perilous, and the questions he is asking are drawing scrutiny from unfriendly authorities.

In the end, Serebin is able to marshall an operation to sabotage Germany's supply of Roumanian oil, but it is a very open question whether he can complete his mission at a cost that doesn't include his life.

Furst is near the top of his game with "Blood of Victory", penning yet another richly-detailed historical novel of spies, intrigue and the horrors of war, populated with well-drawn characters and layered with a deeply-felt love story. Readers of his previous Night Soldiers books will not be disappointed.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Furst is an absolute master of the spy novel as literature. This offering does nothing to detract from that mastery.

This is basically the story of a Russian, poet, editor, emigre', lover, I.A. Serebin. Living in German occupied France in 1940, he decides to "do something" about the spread of Nazism throughout Europe.

The plot is delicious as are all the characters, some of them recognizable from previous novels such as Count Polanyi, the Hungarian spy-master, the arrogant British intelligence officer known only as Mr. Brown, the mad Russian chef at Henninger's Brasserie, Zubotnik. As is usually the case, all of Furst's characters become alive as he introduces them into the story.

The thing I like most about his writing and what differentiates it from that other spy story master, LeCarre, is that I am transported into another time and other places in ways that very few authors can accomplish. This is especially admirable because much of the story happens in Eastern Europe in places I have little knowledge of.

I'm down to the last two of Furst's books and that thought makes me sad.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Blood of Victory' is an oblique sequel to 'Kingdom of Shadows' and the seventh novel in Furst's 'Night Soldiers' series. This novel, however, is set more in Romania and deals with the intrigue around the travels of Ilya Serebin a Russian emigre who runs a organization for Russian exiles and gets caught up in trying to slow Hitler's march into Romania and eventually, inevitably Russia. It is a story about Romanian oil, Hitler's dark creep and the shadows and hard-boiled misfits that wander around, without a home, trying to stop him.

I don't know if it just sepia-fatigue but Furst's novels just aren't hitting me as hard as they once did. 'Blood of Victory' was better written than his last novel, and Furst's plots and characters are still innovative, but just not brilliant. I know I'm asking a lot, and perhaps I'm just weary of the cinematic, hard-boiled schtick. I might need to put Furst to rest for a bit. He is too good a genre writer to give up on, but I might have just over-dosed on the Furst world's war.

[Frederick Bingham · Rating 2 out of 5]

I. A. Serebin is an exiled Russian poet. He is a member of the International Russian Union, an organization of Russians living abroad during the first part of World War II. We first meet him on a ship going to Istanbul. He gradually takes on a mission to disrupt German oil shipments on the Danube by sinking a barge in the middle of the river. He is constantly traveling from one part of Europe to another to fulfill htis mission. Paris, Bucharest, Istanbul, Marseilles. It seems implausible that he can travel so freely in late 1940 in the midst of WWII and the German occupation of most of Europe.The book is written in a "mysterious" and "dark" style. What that means is that half of the time the reader cannot figure out exactly what is going on, what the characters are talking about, why they do what they do, or even who they are. I did finish the book just to find out what happens to his plot. Spoiler: it fails.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book № 7 in the "Night Soldiers" series. This time the central character is Ilya Serebin, an exiled Russian poet. He is a member of the International Russian Union, an organization of Russians living abroad during the first part of World War II. He is co-opted into helping Count Polanyi in a fairly complex plot.
As warfare became more mechanised, the need for oil was ever increasing. Over half of the oil for Nazi Germany's war machine came from the oilfields in Romania. This was then transported by barge up the Danube. This is a story which spans many countries, and the various attempts to disrupt the flow of oil, the life blood of WWII.
At times the dialogue was rather complex, and confusing. Characters were turning up in various locations, with seemingly no reason for how, or why, they came to be there. There is no lessening of the wonderful characterisations, or the atmospherics, that I have come to regard as the hallmarks of these books.

[Roberto · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like mystery and thriller and I like World War II history, so I thought this would be a great book for me. Ouch. It was painful to read. For such a short book, you would think the author wouldn't waste time getting to the point. I realize character development must occur, but it occurred too often and with too many fringe characters that this simple book got real complicated fast. I'd have to say, since I thought I would really enjoy a book like this, my judgment was probably clouded by my own hype. Just wasn't for me. I hope "Spies of Warsaw" is better.

[Kyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the best book I have read this year so far - and for a long long time. The only thing wrong with it is the title, which is a "thriller" title. And this is so NOT a thriller. A small spare tight novel which brilliantly evokes emigre Paris and just the whole Russian emigre experience - I could SMELL the damp raincoats, the slightly spicy air and the ever-present newsprint. A wonderful wonderful book.
Alan Furst does not patronize his reader - he assumes you will understand. And I do, I absolutely do. Thank you, Mr. Furst.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many threads picked up and seemingly dropped or left untwined. So many exit visas left unstamped. Women, but not so many that you can't count 'em. Weapons and bad guys aplenty. Ultimately unsatisfying for me but fiction need not always satisfy . . . maybe it can also introduce, briefly entertain, or conjure the unknowable past?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had just finished Mission to Paris which had a brief appearance by Count Polanyi who plays more of a role in this book. I like that aspect of Alan Furst books, that minor characters keep popping up here & there. It conveys a certain esprit de corps that permeated WWII. I met 3 British veterans in the '80's who worked together during the war & this was the sense I got from them as well.

[Celiavg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intelligent, well-researched and believable espionage novel. Thanks for pointing me to this author, Rob.

[Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, spy stories that you could believe actually happened. Lots of tedium, tragedy, bravery, knavery and fear.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blood of Victory is the seventh of the fourteen historical novels to date in the celebrated Night Soldiers series by Alan Furst. Written in the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, the Night Soldiers stories are set in Europe during the period 1933-44. The action ranges all across Continent, from Warsaw to Istanbul to Paris and numerous points in-between. Most of the novels involve espionage in the long, often futile resistance to Nazi domination.

In Blood of Victory, a Russian émigré writer named I. A. (Ilya) Serebin is drawn into an ambitious British plot to deny Nazi Germany the oil (“the blood of victory”) that flows from the Rumanian oilfields at Ploesti. “Half Russian aristocrat, half Boshevik Jew, . . . Serebin was forty-two, this was his fifth war, he considered himself expert in the matter of running, hiding, or not caring . . . He was, after all, I. A. Serebin, formerly a decorated Hero of the Soviet Union, Second Class, currently the executive secretary of the International Russian Union, a Paris-based organization for émigrés.” Like so many Europeans in the early years of World War II, Serebin no longer has a permanent home. He is living in Paris as the story opens in 1940, shortly after the Nazi invasion of France. But work and a desire to check in on a former lover taken him to the Balkans and to Istanbul. There, he is recruited by Janos Polyani, formerly Count Polyani, a shadowy Hungarian intelligence operative in the service of the British (and a recurring character in the Night Soldiers series).

In 1940, the Balkans are in turmoil—“as always,” some might say. Serbia is about to explode—again—with pro-Nazi and Communist forces fighting for dominance in a bitter political struggle. Mussolini’s legions have made the mistake of invading Greece and are steadily in retreat. Rumania has just joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany as civil war rages on; the Soviet Union has seized two eastern provinces, the fascist Iron Guard roams the streets like Hitler’s brownshirts, loyalists to the old regime are fighting back, and grim young Nazi “tourists” are moving into the country in large numbers. Turkey attempts to stay neutral but is in a steadily more delicate position as pressure mounts on all sides, from the Germans, the British, and the Russians.

Control of Rumania is a key to Hitler’s strategy. The oil at Ploesti fuels the German war machine because I.G. Farben cannot produce synthetic gasoline fast enough. Rumanian land is on the path to the upcoming Nazi invasion of the USSR, and Rumanian divisions are needed to flesh out Germany’s southernmost army group. To hamper Hitler’s invasion plans, slow down the Panzer divisions wreaking havoc in the West and Northern Africa, and possibly delay the invasion of the Soviet Union, Britain has identified the Ploesti oilfields as one of its highest priority targets on the continent. And Winston Churchill has established the top-secret Special Operations Executive (SOE) to conduct sabotage behind enemy lines. Ploesti is one of its first targets. Serebin is drawn into an ambitious and high-risk plan by SOE to disrupt the shipment of oil from the region up the Danube to Germany. The action that unfolds is compelling.

Like so many of Furst’s protagonists, Serebin is a man in early middle age, successful in his field, and what in that era was called a “ladies’ man.” He is rarely without the warming presence of a beautiful woman. Furst writes in an arresting style. His work conjures up the dark mood that had fallen over Europe in the late 1930s.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a book has a boat on the cover, I want to get to the boat before 4/5ths of the story is finished. The first 4/5ths has a lot of dialogue, way too many characters, an uncertain and ambiguous plot, and too many settings to matter. My interest was piqued at the 80% mark. Probably not the best Furst novel to start with, and I still have high hopes that one of his better regarded works will strike me strongly. Will try Red Gold or Nightsoldiers next.

[Benjamin]

In its own way, Furst's World War II spy novel reminds me of the gritty fantasy kick that I've been on recently, like Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series: while the background may be a world-shaking war, the foreground of the books tends to be more personal. Even if the foreground characters are participating in the background war, they are not the heroic linchpins who turn the tide of war--there are no Aragorns and no Bonds here, standing above and directing. Many of the people in Martin's and Furst's book are usually just people caught up in historic forces that go beyond them, forces that they cannot see the edges and ends of. They are the victims of history.

In Furst's book, our primary victim is I. A. Serebin, an emigre Russian writer of modest success, living in Nazi-occupied France, and living comfortably off his Swiss-banked inheritance. An ordinarily angst-ridden man, Serebin gets involved both (a) in plot to interfere with German access to Romanian oil--a plan which, if successful, would hurt but not kill the German warmachine--and (b) with a woman. I have to confess that I spent a large part of the novel being mildly and pleasantly confused about Serebin's motivation to get into espionage and sabotage, which seems like a strange mid-life career choice.

In fact, this sense of mild confusion haunted me--again, pleasantly--throughout the book. I've read reviews of Furst that describe him as an impressionist (http://www.flakmag.com/books/blood.html) and a minimalist (http://www.ralphmag.org/CA/alan-furst...), which seems right to me. And Furst's way of telling a story--minimally, impressionistically--fits with the scope of his characters, who don't know all the story, all the history that they are a part of. So, I enjoyed my confusion--the opacity of the characters and the aspects of history that went unsaid--because it seemed to fit the needs of the story.

(At the same time, while the narratorial voice doesn't cop to knowing all the history--which also means no flashforwards or foreshadowing--it does a nice sideline in asides, dropping in little, perfectly rounded anecdotes. For example: "the Austro-Hungarian army had looted [Belgrade]. Real, old fashioned, neoclassical looting---not of this prissy filching of the national art and gold. They took everything. [...] And, ten years later, some of [the Belgrade natives], going up to see friends in Budapest, were served dinner on their own plates.")

As for Serebin's motivation, it wasn't until re-listening to a few passages that I twigged onto this line, spoken by Serebin's consumptive first love about how to survive (or not) under German fascism:

Oh? Well, please to remember who we are and where we've been. First you say you'll pretend to do what they want, then you do what they want, then you're one of them. Oldest story in the world: if you don't stand up to evil it eats you first and kills you later, but not soon enough.

And this might be the last reason I enjoyed the book: not just for its realist scope and stylistic limits, but for its dismal hope--the best way to survive under evil is not to survive. For that reason, maybe I should update my characterization here: Serebin may be the victim of history, but he still demands a place in it--not necessarily the world-historical position of an Aragorn or a Bond, but his own position, a place in his own history.

[Ossian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has all the strong points of vintage Furst: lovely prose and dialogue, great characters, compelling moral issues, the sights and smells and textures of Europe sliding into WWII. All his weaknesses, too: too lyrical for true suspense, not enough really happens, no closure; less a spy novel - much less a thriller - than a series of snapshots (or, to update the metaphor, video clips).

And then... he had to go and write about Russians.

No one, but no one, does Russians right - there is always some "spreading cranberry tree" in it somewhere. (Google that; it's fun:) Somehow it's harder to take from Alan Furst, with his ear for language and historical nuance, than from someone like Tom Clancy.

Serebin, the Russian-speaking protagonist, meets two Serbs who will help him sabotage some barges. Says Furst: "Russians and Serbs, Slavs who spoke Slavic languages, could understand each other" without a translator - er, no they couldn't, not well enough to do a job together. These are two very distant Slavic languages - a linguist will note the similarities but a man in the street won't understand one word in twenty.

Serebin addresses his lover not as "Tamarochka" or another Russian term of endearment but as "Tamara Petrovna," very formal, like calling her "ma'am" in bed. They first met at age 15 skinny-dipping in a mixed- gender group: not in puritanical Czarist Russia, not at 15, not for anyone but street urchins - which they clearly were not. And did he also call her by her patronymic as a teenager?

Serebin edits a Russian poem for inclusion in his Russian emigre magazine. It's a mediocre poem because "Love rhymed with above, also with stove, well, it almost did." In what language? Because in Russian love rhymes with carrot and mother-in-law but not with either of these words.

Serebin's emigre organization in Paris, the IRU, has a mixed membership of White Russians and Russian Jews, who all get along famously, even though in real life these mixed about as well as oil and water, not least because of their different religious heritage: Orthodox Christianity, often of an anti-Semitic bent, vs religious Judaism or even Soviet atheism. And all of them, Jew or Christian, like so many Americans, blithely use "Christ!" as an expletive. And the IRU gives Christmas baskets to its poor members. Christmas baskets for Jews?

And then, of course, the inevitable mangling of the Russian toast, "vashe zdorovye" ([I drink] your health). Like every other American writer, Furst defaults to the POLISH "na zdrovye" but adds an extra vowel: "na zdorovye," which actually means "you are welcome."

All this makes his other couleur locale equally suspect. Would a French taxi driver in Paris address his dog in the second person formal: regardez? Would a French prostitute curse two men as "bastards" by saying "Salops" - not "Salauds," by chance? For that matter, would a Brit in the 40s, in direct speech, describe his hapless countrymen caught playing spy as being "shipped back in their underwear" - not in their "pants"?

Perhaps I should be happy I don't speak German or Hungarian. Ignorance is bliss ... :)

[Juanita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review: Blood of Victory by Alan Furst.

Alan Furst is a great writer when it comes to espionage, spies, and supplying some realism to the plot. His characters are well developed and some are not predictable. He creates mystery characters in his stories and you keep reading to see who comes out on top.

The reader is first introduced to a Paris-based Russian emigrant writer, IA. Serebin who has fled Stalin’s Russia and is living in a Nazis subjugated Paris. We encounter IA. Serebin boarding a boat from Romania to Turkey and find that travel is essential for countries occupants even in dictatorship and easy passage is possible if the right papers have been obtained. This is an intellectual novel giving the reader a world of smart, reflective people living lives as refugees and activists. IA. Serebin is no friend of the Germans and is approached by a Hungarian spy, Count Polyani asking for help so Serebin agrees to participate in a mission that the British have already tried and failed. Serebin finds himself facing his fifth war, but this time he is in exile, a man without a country, and there is no army to join.

Most of the story is based in Romanian during a time of great civil uneasiness as the anti-Semitic nationalist Iron Guard seeks to take control of the country which means it places Serebin in the thick of the Romanian civil war and in the middle of the oil fields. Serebin is also convinced to help the British attempt to block the Danube River, preventing the Germans access to the Romanian oil that is the key to their remaining both militarily and industrially functional. Their plan is to disrupt the flow of the oil from the fields in Romania to Germany by sinking a group of barges at a shallow point in the Danube River to sabotage any operations the Germans might have planned.

As the battle goes on to put a stop to the Germans oil supply through spy haunts of the Balkans to a whorehouse in Izmir than on to the river docks of Belgrade to the foggy banks of the Danube River. The reader may have questions from both sides of the conspiracy, I know I did. Furst doesn’t make some of the espionage clear enough to follow but if you have read some of his other books you will learn to read between the lines. He is a great writer but his work is somewhat complex.

[Jacki (Julia Flyte) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alan Furst has written fourteen books set in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. They form the "Night Soldiers" series and while they are loosely inter-connected, each is a standalone novel in its own right. Blood of Victory is set between November 1940-July 1941 and is about a British plot to disrupt the supply of Romanian oil to the Germans. Our hero is Serebin, a writer and journalist, originally from Odessa but now living in Paris.

This book showcases both what is good about Furst's writing and what is not so good. He has a wonderful economical writing style - he can pack more into a short paragraph than almost any other author I know. He creates a world full of richly realised characters and brings the settings to life with telling details. His stories are fictional but they feel real.

However as with so many of his books, the storyline takes a back seat to the characters and settings. There are long periods in this book where you kind of wonder where its going or what is the point of the little story we've got waylaid in. Sometimes, masterfully, he will weave it back in 100 pages down the track, but at other times it's just about creating layers of atmosphere, building up a scene in depth. Generally I like this aspect of his writing but this time round it felt like he'd let it go a little too far. The pace is sluggish and the plot seems murky right up until the final 40 pages, which are densely packed with heart in your mouth action.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel by Furst follows his "Kingdom of Shadows," a book I very much enjoyed. It jumps ahead from the last novel to November 24, 1940 and it is primarily set in the countries that border the Black Sea. The Germans have already taken Paris and this book is much more overtly a spy thriller than the last. New set of primary characters, all interesting, and for me a somewhat surprising appearance of a character from the prior novel that we thought was possibly dead. We learn there was much more to him then previously thought. The story revolves in various ways around a somewhat renowned but minor Russian writer from Odessa, I. A. Serabin, an émigré living initially in Paris and other places and how he is drawn into the war. After an incident he realizes he must make a decision to either fight or flee and he chooses to aid the British in an undercover role through a surprising contact.

The objective here is to stop the flow of the "Blood of Victory," which is oil and specifically Roumanian oil to Germany. Although this was an interesting read, dripping with atmosphere and some excellent action sequences and set in some far off and unusual places, it didn't really pull me in quite like "Kingdom of Shadows" did. Still, this was a very suspenseful book, with some exciting heart racing scenes. I'll certainly be reading more from Furst. 3 1/2 stars

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blood of Victory (Night Soldiers, #7)
Alan Furst

Classic Furst: draws one in, episodic, atmospheric, realistic espionage situations during WWII. And, the locations are easily located using Google maps.

Notes while reading:

Main characters:
- Ilya Aleksandrovich Serebin, aka I. A. Serebin, author, nominal head of IRU, International Russian Union.
- Marie-Galante, romantic interest, spy.
- Labonniere, diplomat, husband of M-G
- Tamara Patrovna, first love of IAS, house in Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey, dying.
- Andre Bastien, alias of Count Janos Polanyi of Hungary, spymaster.

Page 20: "Like a giant broom, the war had swept them all to the far edge of Europe."

System Z, a business approach to small countries: Flatter politicians, encourage patriotism, encourage prestige of best military arms; and good intel.

Page 73: "Oil, he said, 'the blood of the earth,' had become, in war, 'the blood of victory.'"

Google maps has good coverage of the area where the final operation takes place. Search for "Moldova Veche, Caraș-Severin County, Romania" and "Berzasca, Caraș-Severin County, Romania". The author refers to "iron gates", which should not be confused with Iron Gates Dam I or Iron Gates Dam II, which are nearby, but not immediately connected with this story.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Gates

[Peter Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Blood of Victory,” by Alan Furst (Random House, 2002). This one starts in November, 1940, with the writer I. A. Serebin on a Bulgarian freighter carrying ore from Romania to Turkey. How’s that for obscure? The story this time is that Serebin, A Russian refugee now fleeing the fall of France and thus doubly exiled, finds himself yoked into plots to destroy or damage or block the movement of Romanian oil to Germany. It’s a British plan, and nothing works. The old spy networks have been destroyed. He has very little to work with. He keeps having to change his identity (the ease of changing identity is either a fact of life in that place and time, or one of Furst’s artistic requirements, along with his hero’s being completely irresistible to all women, any time, any place). This story is about failure. The final plan is to blow up sink a string of barges in a certain place in the Danube to block shipping. Of course the plan is betrayed, the sunk barges are easily removed by the Germans, etc. But it’s fascinating nonetheless, especially when one recalls that the destruction of the Ploesti oilfields continued to be an Allied obsession, resulting in tose ambitious but disastrous B-24 air raids all the way from North Africa.


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