Book summary

In another of Alan Furst's immensely popular World War II mysteries, Jean Casson (hero of THE WORLD AT NIGHT) returns to Nazi-occupied Paris in the fall of 1941 and checks into a seedy hotel. He's down on his luck, depressed, and bored: like the city he loves, he has lost his joie de vivre. Joining an undercover unit, he becomes involved in an operation that's running guns to the French resistance in an attempt to subvert the Vichy government. In the process, he meets Helene Schreiber, who has problems of her own, and who is determined not to fall for Casson. But things on all fronts rapidly get out of control....

Media reviews

"As in THE WORLD AT NIGHT, Furst proves himself a master at capturing the bleak and mean mood of wartime Paris....Furst tries to boost the story's credibility by having his characters offer analyses of the historical and political context in which the narrative takes place....Furst also peppers his dialogue with little phrases or sayings in French (which he then frequently has to translate), as if to remind the reader that they speak a different language in France. But neither device succeeds in bringing most of his characters alive: they are what they do."