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Roger Levin #3
The Caribbean Account
Furst s third novel, a standalone crime thriller.
- GenresFiction
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
139 people want to read
About the author
Alan Furst
39 books1,561 followersAlan 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 8, 2008
Maybe at the time this was written stories about protagonists who behave like complete fools and suffer disabling physical hardships to save women with whom they have become irrationally obsessed were something fresh. Now they are as overworked as Lindsay Lohan's liver.
October 4, 2014
Came across this earlier work of Furst's ... having read all of his European Espionage books.
A fun read, as is all of his stuff - can clearly see the outlines of the mature writer he's become. This work included a great deal more "sex" than his later works, which rely on story-telling amidst the cracking social work of pre-WW2 Europe.
This book had me biting my nails a time or two ... didn't want to put it down ... never a clue as to what might happen next.
Will try to read the two that preceded this work ...
Furst is, for me, a first-rate writer, and has been so from the beginning.
He understands, I believe, the complex nature of good vs. evil ... how the best in us is mostly accidentally discovered as we're pulled into doing something from which we would ordinarily run.
He's a terribly optimistic writer, in my view of things - though life can be mean, and death lurks just around the corner, and sorrow can be deep and devastating, there is in his work always the promise, that love finds a way, that good prevails, that the work needed gets done.
A fun read, as is all of his stuff - can clearly see the outlines of the mature writer he's become. This work included a great deal more "sex" than his later works, which rely on story-telling amidst the cracking social work of pre-WW2 Europe.
This book had me biting my nails a time or two ... didn't want to put it down ... never a clue as to what might happen next.
Will try to read the two that preceded this work ...
Furst is, for me, a first-rate writer, and has been so from the beginning.
He understands, I believe, the complex nature of good vs. evil ... how the best in us is mostly accidentally discovered as we're pulled into doing something from which we would ordinarily run.
He's a terribly optimistic writer, in my view of things - though life can be mean, and death lurks just around the corner, and sorrow can be deep and devastating, there is in his work always the promise, that love finds a way, that good prevails, that the work needed gets done.
August 27, 2016
It's a pastiche of tough guy P.I., dialogue-y driven Gregory Mcdonald, and shifting P.O.V.'s.
Some of it works, but never long enough for you to get a toehold.
My rule with thrillers / crime novels is sheer word clumpage the last 10-30 pages. The bigger the clumps, the crappier the execution. You get to almost-the-end of The Caribbean Account and all of a sudden it's like trying to negotiate Kafka. By comparison, Furst's pre-WWII thrillers are precision models of sparseness.
In short, despite paperback reprint blurbs from a pre-Along Came A Spider James Patterson and Tom Robbins, I understand why Furst doesn't want this thing in print.
Some of it works, but never long enough for you to get a toehold.
My rule with thrillers / crime novels is sheer word clumpage the last 10-30 pages. The bigger the clumps, the crappier the execution. You get to almost-the-end of The Caribbean Account and all of a sudden it's like trying to negotiate Kafka. By comparison, Furst's pre-WWII thrillers are precision models of sparseness.
In short, despite paperback reprint blurbs from a pre-Along Came A Spider James Patterson and Tom Robbins, I understand why Furst doesn't want this thing in print.
August 9, 2016
This is an early novel by Alan Furst, and based on his published comments he thought it was awful. It is not awful and one can see the talent that made his later books great. The plot is not particularly exciting, but the observations from his characters are thoughtful. If you like the Furst style, you will probably find this early work interesting.
August 13, 2016
The copy I read, 1981 vintage, had blurbs from Tom Robbins and James Patterson. That must be good for some kind of bingo.
February 9, 2020
Vor längerer Zeit gelesen. Wiewohl die Hauptfigur ein Privatdetektiv ist, ist der Roman eher ein Thriller. Denn er hat den Auftrag, eine junge Frau, eine reiche Erbin, aus den Klauen eines Sektenführers und Psychopathen zu befreien. Und der hält sich in der Karibik auf. Suspense, mit einem gehörigen Schuss Erotik und Exotik. Es war eine sehr unterhaltsame Lektüre. "Der zweite" Fall mit Roger Lewin, einem ungewöhnlichen und gar nicht heldenhaften Detektiv.
November 25, 2017
The last of this triptych sees Roger Levin in full-on James Bond mode (although he comes home to the same women he's with at the beginning!). The plot is pretty silly, as is the dialogue, as is the romance, as is the mystery. Entertaining, I suppose, but I see why Furst went elsewhere with his next effort!
October 25, 2021
Feel bad leaving Mr. Furst a bad review but this book was not good at all. Glad he improved his writing as he progressed in his career.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews