Book
Kingdom of shadows : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 0375758267
- ISBN: 9780375758263
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Physical Description:
p ; cm.
print - Edition: 1st trade pbk. ed.
- Publisher: New York : Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001.
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| Genre: | Spy stories. War stories. |
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- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #2 November 2000
"On the tenth of March 1938, the night train from Budapest pulled into the Gare du Nord a little after four in the morning." To readers of historical espionage fiction, that sentence can mean only one thing: Alan Furst. Furst writes about the years from 1938 to 1941 as if they were recurring characters, and over the course of five books, he has laid permanent claim to that period as his own. His latest tale concerns a Hungarian aristocrat, Nicholas Morath, who is living a life of easy indolence in prewar Paris. The only disturbance to his round of dinner parties and late-night romantic assignations is the occasional secret mission to Hungary at the behest of his diplomat uncle. Morath treats these forays more as familial obligation than as patriotic duty, but as Hitler's march across Europe continues, he finds himself slipping further into the shadow world of secret agents. What Furst does so convincingly--beyond the razor-sharp evocation of period and place--is capture the moral ambiguity at the heart of the lapsed cynics who are his heroes. Morath's commitment, like Jules Casson's in Red Gold (1999), is to individual rather than national values, even to hedonism rather than patriotism, yet he is pulled into the conflict anyway. Morath and Casson take tremendous risks, even act heroically, but they do it with a kind of tired resignation, as if an undertow were pulling them down. That's not to say they aren't romantic--you can't light a cigarette on a dark Paris street in 1938 without being romantic--but they are also utterly unsentimental. That is Furst's genius: he portrays what is perhaps the twentieth-century's most terrifying yet perversely romantic period without letting the romance turn the terror into sentimental goo. Bill OttCopyright 2000 Booklist Reviews - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2001 January
The further we recede in time from World War II, the more we realize what a marvelous setting that conflict is for any artist trying to depict the human condition. Alan Furst's new thriller, Kingdom of Shadows, is set in pre-war Paris, a city that spends its days and nights watching the gathering storm.One of the city's more intriguing residents is Nicholas Morath, an expatriate Hungarian aristocrat who makes his living as part owner of an advertising agency. He lives well in the most romantic city on the planet; he has a beautiful young Argentinean mistress, he eats and drinks in smoky clubs that play American jazz, he associates with rich, sophisticated people like himself. He is also a spy. His uncle, Count Janos Polanyi, is dedicated to stopping, in whatever small way he can, the march of the madman in Berlin, and he uses his nephew to do small "chores" for him. Like the mythical heroes of old, Morath is given one mission after another, each more dangerous than the last.
Alan Furst's novels have been compared to the works of John Le Carr, and Kingdom of Shadows clearly demonstrates why. Great events in our lives are shaped by little things, and like Le Carr, Furst excels in the small details. On a trip to a client, Morath visits a men's clothier; the chain-smoking female proprietor is revealed to be a once beautiful woman of Budapest society - who also happens to be his contact, with intelligence information for his uncle. It is through this off-hand revelation that we learn Morath's true occupation, and many other aspects of the plot are presented in the same subtle way.
Morath himself remains an enigma. While on one hand projecting an air of bored indifference, he does his uncle's bidding without complaint. He is a survivor, a soldier and a man capable of taking a human life if the situation warrants. And yet, though we find out so much about him through his friends, his enemies and the women he loves, Morath is still swathed in mystery at book's end.
Kingdom of Shadows evokes a black and white movie feeling; Furst paints the motivations and emotions of his characters in shades of gray. This is a beautifully written, literate thriller, perfect for a gray winter's afternoon curled up by the fire.
James Neal Webb dreams of going to Paris some day. Copyright 20001 BookPage Reviews
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2000 November #1
Furst (Red Gold, 1999, etc.) returns to a bygone Paris and its perversely menacing environs, this time spotlighting a gallant, impeccably suave Hungarian who abruptly leaves the City of Light's parks and cafés on daring missions of intrigue.Debonair debauchee Nicholas Morath is living high in 1938 as a member of the tout Paris, a whirling community of gracefully aging royals, devil-may-care artists, and cynical denizens of the demimonde torn between lighting out for the seaside villa in Normandy, plunging into the casinos of Deauville, or continuing their hedonistic wallow in the stylish city that both adores and ignores them. Morath puts in the odd hour or two at his advertising agency, but prefers the company of his sexy Argentine mistress Cara, who has just been painted nude by Picasso. Just when his life seems to have reached its delightfully dull peak, Morath is summoned to lunch by his uncle, Count Janos Polyani, a crafty official in the Hungarian legation. Now that Hitler has annexed Austria, portending trouble for Hungarians in their native land and abroad, the decorous Count has a favor or four to ask of his nephew. The favors, presented in four interconnected novellas, send the quietly courageous Morath into the Paris expatriate underworld and on several missions into the beautiful gloom of prewar Eastern Europe, where the Reich is opening old wounds and stirring up ancient hatreds. In a series of increasingly dangerous missionsâfrom which Morath always manages to return in time for an aperitifand an amorous rompâhe finds himself played as both king and pawn by devious intriguers who all know that they are living in the last light of a dying era.Furst's narrative, like its hero, lingers so long at the café table that a great deal of the suspense lies in hoping that suspense will arrive. Fortunately, the action scenes are fresh, brutal, and well worth the wait. Copyright 2000 Kirkus Reviews - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2000 September #1
Debonair Nicholas Morath, a Hungarian émigré, is living the high life in Paris until the Hungarian Resistance taps him to help counter Hitler's growing threat. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2000 December #1
Furst has earned deserved acclaim for his lapidary espionage novels (The World at Night, Red Gold), set just before World War II. His noir heroes navigate a world of betrayed promises and lost friends, seeking to derail Nazi lackeys and only half believing in their own chance of success or survival. A welcome addition to Furst's opus, Kingdom is all mood and nuance, set in a drowning world of moral entropy: "They have created a cheap, soiled, empty world, and now we have the pleasure of living in it," says one character. The protagonist, Nicholas Morath, is dragged into futile delaying actions in Eastern Europe and France, while Hitler's minions gobble up countries without resistance. "You're not a virgin," exclaims his uncle. "You have to get your hands dirty whether you like the idea or not. Try and forgive the world for being what it is." An exceptional piece of writing, with engaging characters and moments of sharp, unexpected violence, this is recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/00.] David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2000 November #1
The desperation of "stateless" people trying to escape the Nazi redrawing of the European map in the late 1930s pervades Furst's (Night Soldiers; Red Gold, etc.) marvelous sixth espionage thriller. On a rainy night in 1938, the train from Budapest pulls into Paris bearing Nicholas Morath, a playboy Hungarian expatriate and sometime spy for his uncle, a wealthy Hungarian diplomat based in the French capital. Morath, a veteran hero of the Great War and a Parisian for many years, now finds himself forced to rely on former enemies to try to rescue Eastern European fugitives displaced by Hitler's aggression. His eclectic circle includes a Russian gangster, a pair of destitute but affable near-tramps, and a smooth-talking SS officer. Smuggling forged passports, military intelligence documents and cash through imminent war zones, Morath time and again returns in thankless triumph to the glittering salons of Paris. Furst expertly weaves Morath's apparently unconnected assignments into the web of a crucial 11th-hour international conspiracy to topple Hitler before all-out war engulfs Europe again, counterbalancing scenes of fascist-inspired chaos with the sounds, smells and anxieties of a world dancing on the edge of apocalypse. The novel is more than just a cloak-and-dagger thrill ride; it is a time machine, transporting readers directly into the dread period just before Europe plunged into its great Wagnerian götterdämmerung. This is Furst's best book since The Polish Officer, and in it he proves himself once again a master of literary espionage. (Jan. 19) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
