His latest is a satisfying, thought-provoking read.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. As usual, Furst manages to hold the reader’s rapt attention without blood-and-guts action.įurst owns the dark blanket that covers Europe between the two world wars. It is an act of bravery and desperation that even with the best outcome won’t tip the balance, but Ferrar doesn’t know that. But perhaps with the right connections, Ferrar can relieve an Odessa warehouse of the needed materiel and sail it successfully to Valencia. Stalin knows he will eventually need them.

What about the Soviet Union? Can Ferrar and his friend de Lyon buy anti-aircraft munitions from the Soviets? No, not officially. Italy, of course, is under fascist control. Almost no country wants to help them-not the United States, not Britain, not France. Ferrar wants to help the Republicans before all is lost, but how? Messerschmidts supplied by Hitler continually divebomb and slaughter the Republican troops. On both sides, people disappear at the slightest suspicion of treason. He portrays Europe with masterful foreboding, a mood that paints the continent in shades of gray. “For the secret services of Germany, Italy and the USSR, the civil war was a spymaster’s dream,” Furst writes.

Spies are everywhere, perhaps even in the hero’s bed. It is in many ways a proxy war between Hitler and Stalin and a precursor to world war. On the other side are the Republicans, who are communists and other loyalists supported by Stalin’s Soviet Union. Civil war rages in his native country, and he fears deeply that Francisco Franco’s fascists-the Nationalists-will win. Attorney Cristián Ferrar is a Spaniard working in Paris and New York.

Another tense drama of pre–World War II Europe from a master of the period.ĭecember 1937.

Midnight in Europe by Alan Furst