ALAN FURST — THE POLISH OFFICER / NIGHT SOLDIERS / RED GOLD

1939 bombing of Warsaw

My uncle gave me The Polish Officer last summer and I finally picked it up after a chance night laid over in Warsaw. I then proceeded on an Alan Furst kick, and when I told Uncle G about it, he sent me some emails about the weird lil history our family has had with Mr. Furst. My grandfather apparently read one of these novels (The Polish Officer) and was enjoying it until he noticed that the direction of a train line was completely wrong in Furst’s tale, so he stormed off angrily to find another book. Meanwhile Uncle G took it upon himself to write to Furst about the inaccuracy, to which Furst very graciously wrote back, apologizing and thanking Uncle G for being an attentive reader. Despite this response, which Uncle G told my grandfather about, Grandpa could not forgive Mr. Furst. I have copies of this correspondence. It makes me feel very warm toward Uncle G, because this is his natural habitat: reading, investigating, consulting his history books, scraping down toward a truth, no matter how minor. I wonder about the patience of Alan Furst. As his jacket copy will tell you, his metier is the historical spy novel, so it invites this kind of thing, random armchair historians writing to him, he must have hundreds upon hundreds of letters like G’s, and good for him for writing back. The Polish Officer is my favorite of the three novels I read; Night Soldiers, also highly recommended, especially a seductive sequence whereby a young Bulgarian is recruited, just the sort of story turn that I think should appear in most if not all spy novels; Red Gold didn’t grab me, but I’d hurt my foot and wasn’t very comfortable while reading it. The fact that I read three of these in a row should speak toward the strength of my recommendation.    

Read January 2022