Dark Star

by Alan Furst

book data

335 ratings, 4.12 average rating, 38 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		34%
4		46%
3		17%
2		0%
1		0%

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published

July 9th 2002 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published 1991)

details

Paperback, 464 pages

characters

André Szara, Ilya Goldman, Anton Vyborg

isbn

0375759999 (isbn13: 9780375759994)

description

Paris, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague, 1937. In the back alleys of nighttime Europe, war is already under way. André Szara, survivor of the Polish pogrom…more

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Jan 18, 2008

Christopher rated it:

Read in December, 2007

This book is a sure fire winner for anyone who enjoys truly compelling story set against a lushly detailed historical back drop.

Alan Furst really has an incredible talent for bringing history alive and this book is a fine example.

Generalities aside for the moment, I particularly enjoyed the Russian/Eastern European bent of this story. Our protagonist is a Polish born Russified Jew who begins the tale as a fiery, empassioned writer for Pravda but is slowly sucked into the...more

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Feb 08, 2009

Sharif rated it:

Alan Furst is better than John Le Carre. There I've said it.

Since I started the series, I've been living in 1939, wearing my rain coat and I'm thinking of sewing my passport into the lining of my briefcase. Is that too obvious?

It's true what everyone says about Furst. You're suddenly and shockingly plunged into this period in history. You'll learn to care deeply about all those eastern bloc countries that you barely know. You'll learn how to survive as a Russian ...more

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Nov 08, 2009

Emily M. rated it:

bookshelves: 2009

Read in August, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

We're back to Paris, 1938, and the protagonist is André Szara, a Pravda reporter who occasionally does little errands for the Soviet secret police. But he realizes that one task he accomplished was actually done at the behest of a rogue element of the police agency working against Stalin, and he gets dragged into a complicated conspiracy that later has him and his intelligence "asset," a German-Jewish wire factory owner, double-dealing with both the English and the Germans. (The facto...more

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Dec 24, 2009

Cliff rated it:

bookshelves: novels

Read in December, 2009

Alan Furst's novels are about people caught up in the momentous political events in Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The central character in this novel, André, is a Russian Jewish journalist whose immediate concern is to avoid extermination in Stalin's purges of 1937-38, and subsequently. Because André's profession requires him to travel widely and come into contact with influential figures in other countries, he receives a series of assignments, of which he has little un...more Alan Furst's novels are about people caught up in the momentous political events in Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The central character in this novel, André, is a Russian Jewish journalist whose immediate concern is to avoid extermination in Stalin's purges of 1937-38, and subsequently. Because André's profession requires him to travel widely and come into contact with influential figures in other countries, he receives a series of assignments, of which he has little understanding, from shadowy, powerful and often competing figures in Moscow. Increasingly, as he gains information, he tries to use it to secure the safety and freedom of himself and others.

The story consists of a loosely related series of episodes that include: uncovering evidence that Stalin was a Czarist spy prior to the 1917 revolution; obtaining information about German military aircraft production; obtaining advance warning of Germany's military plans from dissident elements within the German Army, and helping Jewish refugees obtain papers that will enable them to emigrate to Palestine. Furst creates a sense of place and of action with such skill and detail that the reader has a sense of actually participating in André's adventures. At the same time André is attempting to make sense, at a fairly high intellectual level, of the events that are going on around him - just how can gutter animals like Hitler and Stalin reach the positions of power they do and wreak the carnage they do? Long after finishing the book questions like these remain with the reader.

Although it is a beautifully written and enthralling book, 'Dark Star' has some serious weaknesses. Furst said in an interview that this, his second novel, and 'Night Soldiers', his first, each contain enough material for about five books of this type, and it is certainly true that the various episodes that make up this book are not well integrated. André repeatedly finds himself in dangerous situations from which he is extricated in mysterious ways by mysterious powerful figures for mysterious reasons while all around him his colleagues are being wiped out like flies by Stalin's henchmen. Clearly Furst himself finds this unsatisfactory because he inserts a scene late in the book in which André speculates about a rationale for it all, but it is rather lame. Finally, Furst goes beyond constructing a very accurate historical background to the novel, and includes some hypotheses of his own that I am fairly certain, in spite of my rather limited knowledge of these matters, are rather far fetched. Furst's ideas include the possibility that the German army would leak intelligence to assist its defeat in order to thwart a hegemony over Europe by Hitler, and the possibility that Stalin focussed his purges on Jewish elements within the communist party in order to curry favour with Hitler through a display of anti-semitism.
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Mar 13, 2008

Gene rated it:

bookshelves: history, novels

Read in March, 2008

If you want to get the feeling of what it was like to live in the years of the early 30s into WW II, and the terror of the rise of Hitler, this is the book. Furst writes a terrific spy novel based on sound historical research. Even the minor characters linger for days after you put the book away.

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Aug 29, 2009

Christopher rated it:

bookshelves: fiction, wwii

Read in September, 2009

I am beginning to become a serious fan of Furst's work. [Dark Star:] is definitely a darker work than the last Furst I read The Polish Officer, and that really is saying something. I'm really not sure how accurately Furst portrays the thinking of a Soviet citizen living through Stalin's purges, but it is certainly believable. Furst proposes several theories for the purges as his main character, Andre Szara, tries to navigate the pitfalls of pre-war Europe. I wish I could measure the believab...more I am beginning to become a serious fan of Furst's work. [Dark Star:] is definitely a darker work than the last Furst I read The Polish Officer, and that really is saying something. I'm really not sure how accurately Furst portrays the thinking of a Soviet citizen living through Stalin's purges, but it is certainly believable. Furst proposes several theories for the purges as his main character, Andre Szara, tries to navigate the pitfalls of pre-war Europe. I wish I could measure the believability of these theories that Furst puts in the mouths of his characters. Unfortunately, When I treid to read the the seminal history of the Purges, Robert Conquest's The Great Terror, I just couldn't drag myself through it.

The most interesting contrast I felt in the book was between the terror regimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. In both countries, a knock on the door in the middle of the night usually meant a visit from the secret police and the disappearance of at least one family member, usually forever. However, in Germany, you had a pretty good idea of why you being arrested and on whose authority that arrest was happening. In Russia, the Terror was much less predictable. The state apparatus turned on minorities, dissidents, rivals, and even itself. Sometimes it seems clear that Stalin was targeting those he felt were a threat to him, at other times, he seemed to be terrorizing the whole country. Furst surmises that some portions of the purge were factional infighting within the government, with no clear hand from above.

All of this is buffered in the book by having Szara, spend most of his time in Paris, Berlin, or Poland, working as a semi-reluctant spy-master for the NKVD under the cover of his previous life as a journalist from ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda">Pravda</a>. This plethora of settings hurts the pacing a bit. Dark Star is over twice as long as The Polish Officer, and it certainly felt it. Still, this novel felt a bit more solid than the very impressionistic and almost ethereal detachment of The Polish Officer.(less)

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May 21, 2009

Toby McMillen rated it:

This was my second read of this book, and I have come to the opinion that this is the best of the Alan Furst books. Full stop. The character of Andre Szara is compelling and complex, and the story is well-told. Furst always gives such an interesting viewpoint of the tumultuous times in which his stories are set. Furst characters always play the part of normal people who never particularly cared to be heroes, but ended up that way anyhow.
I recommend this book, and any Furst book, for that m...more

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Aug 14, 2009

Mike rated it:

Read in September, 2009

Got to print my favorite quote, of several good ones, from book:
"Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said." (pg 35 in trade paper)

Dark Star is another smart, swiftly running espionage thriller from Alan Furst, set in Europe (as are all his spy novels), during the doom-infested years immediately preceding WWII. The tale is the tangled adventures of An...more

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Feb 27, 2009

Dorothy rated it:

bookshelves: foreign-intrigue-and-political-myst, historical-fiction

Read in September, 2009

Furst is a master at creating the atmosphere of the period about which he writes, the period just before and during World War II in Europe. This book's main character is a Polish/Soviet Jew foreign correspondent for Pravda who is recruited into the eerie and totally confusing world of espionage as Germany threatens to consume Europe and perhaps the world.

The plot to the novel is so convoluted, there is so much misdirection, that I found myself not knowing what I had just read or whe...more

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Jul 29, 2008

Ron rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Another triumph for the author whom I consider the finest current writer of spy/espionage fiction, partially because it's almost inaccurate to call hiw works spy novels. They are rather historical novels of a very definite period of time and place: Europe in the 1930's leading up to World War II and on into the early years of the war (roughly a 10-12 year period of time.

Furst's world as a writer is shadowed by two titans of evil in the 20th century: Hitler and Stalin, and their often...more

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May 23, 2009

Liz rated it:

Read in May, 2009

Wow! A spy thriller with a load of early WWII history. This author was recommended to me by my neighbor who calls Alan Furst the "American John LeCarre" and I agree. I started with this early novel and plan to read more of him. I found the beginning complicated and a little slow, but it really picked up and I could hardly put it down. Szara, the protagonist, is a Jewish-Polish emigre to Russia who is enlisted in to the NKVD. Tons of character development, action and romance.

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Jan 12, 2009

Kathy McGrath rated it:

Read in January, 1995

Wanna know what Europe really felt like in the late 30's? Feel like those history books taught you less than nothing? Read Alan Furst's books and see things through the eyes of Russians, Bulgarians, Parisians, Poles and others resisting the nightmares of Hitler and Stalin. Dark Star is my favorite, but Night Soldiers and The Polish Officer blew me away as well.

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Nov 07, 2008

Richard rated it:

bookshelves: espionage, fiction, historical-fiction

Read in November, 2008

This is the second volume in Furst's "Night Soldiers" series, although most of the series need not be read in the order published: only The World at Night and Red Gold relate directly as a sequential pair. For those that wish the read the books in sequence, Night Soldiers precedes this and The Polish Officer follows.

(In this story, the visit to Brasserie Heininger takes place starting on page 258.)

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Jan 07, 2008

Daniel rated it:

Read in January, 2003

"Dark Star" is about a Pravda correspondent, Andre Szara, who is coerced by the KGB into spying for the Soviet government. The time is the late 30's, and Furst leads Szara through a number of historical events - some real, some imagined - that preceded World War II. This includes a fantastic scene in which Szara witnesses Kristallnacht.

Furst has made a name for himself writing historical spy thrillers based in pre-WWII Europe, and "Dark Star" is a good example of ...more

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Aug 04, 2009

Laurel rated it:

Read in August, 2009

I usually have difficulty with espionage novels; I have a difficult time following them and I think it's because I tend to read them like I read any other novel and that doesn't work for me. I almost put this book aside after about 20 pages. I'm glad I continued. Great historical detail and Szara is a memorable character.

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Nov 21, 2008

Matthew rated it:

A great piece of historical fiction that takes place on the eve of World War II, it looks at the dirty, questionably useful work and even more useless individual sacrifice fit into the larger frame of the European conflict.

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Aug 03, 2009

Anne Nelson rated it:

Read in August, 2009

One of my favorite Fursts (and I've read a lot). He has an incomparable ability to recreate the inner life of characters who are traveling through the murk of Europe poised on the brink of war. This one involves the intrigues of Soviet intelligence amidst Stalin's monstrous purges. Furst's historical details are impeccable, yet he still manages to wear his learning lightly. The Master.

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Jun 11, 2009

Amanda rated it:

bookshelves: historical-fiction, ww2

Read in September, 2009

The story takes place pre-World War II, in 1937. Andre Szara is a Polish-born journalist working for the Russian newspaper Pravda. While just doing his job, he gets coerced into working with the NKVD (Soviet secret intelligence). Setting up base in Paris, Szara becomes pretty much a spy for Russia. He travels across Europe as a spy and a journalist, enlisting the help of an agent in Berlin with whom he develops romantic connections.

Ok. So a spy novel. But Furst knows his history...so...more

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Dec 11, 2008

Al rated it:

A very interesting view of Europe during the time period 1937-40 through the eyes of a Soviet NKVD agent. If you enjoy reading about WWII in Europe and also like spy thrillers, you will definitely enjoy this book.

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Apr 16, 2008

Ed rated it:

bookshelves: reviewed, spy-political-thriller

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: Spy Story Lovers

Allan Furst is to WWII what John LeCarre is to the Cold War. He is one of, if not, the best practitioners of the "spy novel" as literature.

His main character Andre Szara grew on me until I found myself thinking, "Could I do what he did and maintain my essential self?" I'm still not sure.

The story starts slowly but gathers momentum like one of the trains that Szara rides all over Europe. How Furst manages to capture the essential Russian-ness or Ge...more

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