Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Blood of Victory (Night Soldiers #7)
by
Alan Furst
“In 1939, as the armies of Europe mobilized for war, the British secret services undertook operations to impede the exportation of Roumanian oil to Germany. They failed.
“Then, in the autumn of 1940, they tried again.”
So begins Blood of Victory, a novel rich with suspense, historical insight, and the powerful narrative immediacy we have come to expect from bestselling autho...more
“Then, in the autumn of 1940, they tried again.”
So begins Blood of Victory, a novel rich with suspense, historical insight, and the powerful narrative immediacy we have come to expect from bestselling autho...more
ebook, 0 pages
Published
August 27th 2002
by Random House
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,375)
Though there's a clear pattern and predictability to all of Furst's books, if (like me)you enjoy espionage novels that take place during WWII you can't go wrong with this author. Though the outcome is generally predictable, the route to the outcome is always intriguing. His main characters are always atypical and engaging, and they always side with the Allies against the Nazis so the good guys always end up at least somewhat ahead. But what really makes Furst's novels so much fun is his ability...more
2 likes · like · see review
view 1 comment
Kind of looking forward to this, having seen such good reviews for spies of the balkans. I stumbled across this in the library and gave it a go.
Furst kind of manages the impossible and makes WWII boring.
The books got the exotic locations and a good premise - the need to stop the Germans getting at Roumanian oil. And I always love a book that starts with a map.
Its the style that lets it down. There is next to no characterisation. Is this part of a series? Am I meant to know what drives and motiv...more
Furst kind of manages the impossible and makes WWII boring.
The books got the exotic locations and a good premise - the need to stop the Germans getting at Roumanian oil. And I always love a book that starts with a map.
Its the style that lets it down. There is next to no characterisation. Is this part of a series? Am I meant to know what drives and motiv...more
In its own way, Furst's World War II spy novel reminds me of the gritty fantasy kick that I've been on recently, like Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series: while the background may be a world-shaking war, the foreground of the books tends to be more personal. Even if the foreground characters are participating in the background war, they are not the heroic linchpins who turn the tide of war--there are no Aragorns and no Bonds here, standing above and directing. Many of the people in Martin's and...more
'Blood of Victory' begins in late 1940 with the executive secretary of the International Russian Union, an emigre organization in Paris, boarding a Istanbul-bound Bulgarian freighter in Romania midway down the western coast of the Black Sea. He's a semi-well known writer named I.A. Serebin and he immediately takes up with the glamorous wife of a Vichy diplomat.
Gratifying to me, because I had just finished Furst's 'Dark Voyage,' which stayed well west of the Carpathians, and was happy to find him...more
Gratifying to me, because I had just finished Furst's 'Dark Voyage,' which stayed well west of the Carpathians, and was happy to find him...more
I. A. Serebin is an exiled Russian poet. He is a member of the International Russian Union, an organization of Russians living abroad during the first part of World War II. We first meet him on a ship going to Istanbul. He gradually takes on a mission to disrupt German oil shipments on the Danube by sinking a barge in the middle of the river. He is constantly traveling from one part of Europe to another to fulfill htis mission. Paris, Bucharest, Istanbul, Marseilles. It seems implausible that he...more
Blood of Victory is another superb, atmospheric espionage novel by Alan Furst set in the early years of the second world war. The blood in the title is oil and an unlikely hero in an emigre Russian poet puts together a team which attempts to block the Danube and prevent Rumanian oil reaching Germany.
The hero I A Seberin is also a romantic who becomes increasingly cynical as the war progresses. The action moves swiftly between Istanbul, Paris, Bucharist and Belgrade as Seberin puts together his t...more
The hero I A Seberin is also a romantic who becomes increasingly cynical as the war progresses. The action moves swiftly between Istanbul, Paris, Bucharist and Belgrade as Seberin puts together his t...more
Feb 28, 2011
Bill
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-historical,
spy-intrigue
I started rereading this last night because I was too tired to focus on the O'Connor book. I love Furst's style and mood he evokes and the historical settings. Although the novels are historical intrigue/spy novels the main characters are usually pulled in from everyday life. In this case the protagonis is the Russian poet Serebin exiled from the USSR and living tenuously in occupied Paris. Early in the story he finds himself in Turkey. This is one of my favorite passages:
"A cloudy morning in Is...more
"A cloudy morning in Is...more
This is the seventh 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, Kingdom of Shadows precedes this and Dark Voyage follows.
This book seemed to me to cross a line between complex and oblique, and just plain confusing. I enjoyed the writing, as always, but I felt a bit powerless as the story pulled me from Paris to Istanbul to Bucharest, etc., for reasons that were often quite unclear. On the plus side, I thought Marie-Galante was one of Furst's better female characters. (I do wish he'd try writing a book about a woman sometime.) So this gets only three stars, because I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't recommend it strongly...more
1 like · like · see review
Alan Furst obviously knows this time period quite well. This book was very entertaining and illuminated the peculiarities of the time. My only problem with it is that he seems to stand back a bit from truly developing his main characters. Instead, he skips around and gives you pieces of several different ones. I was left with some confusion as I didn't really get to know the characters enough to be able to keep them all straight in my head. The story skips around war torn Europe and I would real...more
Jul 30, 2012
Michael
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
historical-fiction,
thriller,
world-war-2,
espionage,
france,
paris,
turkey,
romania
If you, like me, are addicted to Furst's series of noirish and romantic historical spy thrillers from the pre- and early World War 2 period, you will be compelled to read this one. The tale covers the struggles of a Russian emigree writer in 1940 to make a contribution through espionage toward stopping Hitler's access to oil in Romania. The title refers to a statement at a 1918 oil conference: "Oil, the blood of the earth, in the time of war, has become the blood of victory." At the time of this...more
Furst is an absolute master of the spy novel as literature. This offering does nothing to detract from that mastery.
This is basically the story of a Russian, poet, editor, emigre', lover, I.A. Serebin. Living in German occupied France in 1940, he decides to "do something" about the spread of Nazism throughout Europe.
The plot is delicious as are all the characters, some of them recognizable from previous novels such as Count Polanyi, the Hungarian spy-master, the arrogant British intelligence of...more
This is basically the story of a Russian, poet, editor, emigre', lover, I.A. Serebin. Living in German occupied France in 1940, he decides to "do something" about the spread of Nazism throughout Europe.
The plot is delicious as are all the characters, some of them recognizable from previous novels such as Count Polanyi, the Hungarian spy-master, the arrogant British intelligence of...more
Set before WWII becomes World War, just prior to Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the story focuses on a plot by a varied group of committed anti-fascists to disrupt the flow of "the blood of victory", oil. The Germans depend on the flow of Romanian oil up the Danube to lubricate their war machine. The disruption of this flow has been tried several times, but has always failed and the Germans are always on the lookout for trouble. Serebin, an itinerant Russian poet living in Vichy France,...more
When I read Furst, I have to slow down and pay attention because he doesn't necessarily explain the plotlines as show you an aspect, sometimes from the point of view of a bit character. For example, one scene is shown through the eyes of an emigre waiter in London who is used for this one point only never to be seen again. But Furst does a splendid job of portraying these small parts in a few well-chosen lines. I'm a big fan and will be sorry when I have read them all (I only have a few left).
Another Alan Furst. I thought I'd read all his novels, and stumbled onto this one. He took me to Belgrade, Istanbul, Paris, and Bucharest -- all in the pre-Pearl Harbor days of World War II. The protagonist is a Russian journalist. That is a time, and those are places, that fascinate me, and from pages one through to the end I was in the thrall of the author. Wonderful characters, complex but smooth plot, and as always with Furt, the feeling of "You Are There."
The blood of Victory is oil. Ilya Serebin, a Russian who is living in Paris and elsewhere is part of a plot to try to deny the German army access to Roumanian oil. His plan is to sink barges of heavy equipment at a spot in the Danube where is crosses the Carpathian range and is particularly fast and difficult to navigate. He does not quite succeed but is effective anyway. An excellent book, what I have come to expect of Furst
One of Furst's 'Night Soldiers' historical thrillers about individuals who resist the Nazi occupation of Europe. This one is based on allied attempts to disrupt shipments of Romanian oil along the Danube to Germany. Not one of Furst's best. The characters are flat, the plot thin and rambling. Really one for those (like me) who are ardent admirers of Furst's prose style and atmospherics.
I like espionage and I like historical fiction even more. So, I recommend Alan Furst for anyone looking for these. Simply put. I randomly picked up this one, even though Night Strangers as been on my "to read" list for a while. Good to know you can pick up randomly in Furst's series. One recommendation for future readers: Keep a list of the characters...it gets a little confusing with all the the name drops in and out of different parts of the book.
Being East European myself--that is the region where Fursts's novel is set--I never cease to be amazed at his accuracy of detail, and his minute knowlegde of the region and its history.East Europe has been used as a semi-exotic backdrop by many a thriller and spy story writer in the past, but the overwhelming majority were uninformed enough to make elementary mistakes. A misspelt or mixed-up name, a geographical mistake, an event which could not have happened at the given place at the given time...more
In Blood of Victory which is in fact oil, petrol from Roumania that the Germans need to continue the war, we follow Russian émigré I. A.Serebin first steps into the spy world.
From Istanbul, to Paris to Bucharest, back in Paris, into Belgrade this is a great game to stall the Germans' access to oil until the Americans come into the war.
We are in early 1941. Furst sets the pieces and you enjoy watching the chess game even if you know how it ends. Furst succeeds in merging historical figures and...more
From Istanbul, to Paris to Bucharest, back in Paris, into Belgrade this is a great game to stall the Germans' access to oil until the Americans come into the war.
We are in early 1941. Furst sets the pieces and you enjoy watching the chess game even if you know how it ends. Furst succeeds in merging historical figures and...more
May 25, 2011
Elli
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
conspiracy,
espionage,
financial-crime,
france,
germany,
historical-fiction,
international,
intrigue,
political,
world-war-2
Another excellent novel, period beginning what turned into World War II. This time the characters included many emigrants, refugees from other lands; most well aware that they can never go back. Some White Russians, some communists, some chosen victims of political purges, etc. The main character was from Odessa many years ago and had been a resident, like many others, of Paris for many, many years. He was a journalist. One feels that with Alan Furst, you are living this period and in this area...more
We're back in familiar Furst territory in this yarn about a Russian emigre writer trying to do the right thing as World War II engulfs Europe. I enjoyed the descriptions of Bucharest (a city I know well) in turmoil and the book comes to a satisfyingly ambiguous climax.
My only reservation is that once you've read one of Furst's books you've kind of read them all. Nobody does atmosphere and intrigue better -- but he's not as good at love or passion and after a few of these books a certain predic...more
My only reservation is that once you've read one of Furst's books you've kind of read them all. Nobody does atmosphere and intrigue better -- but he's not as good at love or passion and after a few of these books a certain predic...more
An excellent novel, steeped with the atmosphere of Europe during WW II. Even his minor characters are distinctive. It's not a genre thriller, but a novel about people who become spies and how they build a network--and how they never know who might betray them, or whether all their efforts will do any good.
The seventh book in the "Night Soldiers" series, it follows the same basic plot as the others. There is little here that will surprise the reader. But, apparently like many people, I keep reading these because they're just plain enjoyable. Furst is fantastic at making WW2-era Europe seem alive and is a very capable author in general.
This guy is a real find. Not that I haven't been meaning to read him for years. But now that I've tried him, I'm hooked -- and there are so many more to read! Has some stylistic quirks you have to get used to, but after that they're exciting, super-atmospheric, sexy espionage tales.
I almost couldn't get past the first third of the book, but then it started happening. How an exiled writer turned spy seemed real-to-life during this WWII thriller where difficult choices had to be made, and personal survival came second to the fight against tyranny. Who can you trust?
I usually like Alan Furth for his noir imagery of WWII in Europe -- I consider his work the literary equivalent of the film Casablanca. This one I didn't care for as much, though -- whether it was too chopped up, or my reading of it was, it didn't hold together like some of his others.
This is what I imagine real spying is like: consisting not of cinematic derring-do with a cliffhanger every few pages, but with a lot of furtive meetings and oblique conversations operating against a gray background of menace. But that makes the action, when it comes, all-the-more thrilling. This book ends in just such a way.
So many threads picked up and seemingly dropped or left untwined. So many exit visas left unstamped. Women, but not so many that you can't count 'em. Weapons and bad guys aplenty. Ultimately unsatisfying for me but fiction need not always satisfy . . . maybe it can also introduce, briefly entertain, or conjure the unknowable past?
I enjoyed this atmospheric story of a Russian ex-patriate writer drawn into the British SS attempt to stop the flow of Romanian oil into Germany during WWII. I love this author's characterizations, locales, and mood-setting, he does it so well!
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not Best in Series, but Good | 1 | 6 | Oct 15, 2008 10:34pm |
Alan Furst is widely recognized as the current master of the historical spy novel. Born in New York, he has lived for long periods in France, especially Paris. He now lives on Long Island.
Night Soldiers novels
* Night Soldiers (1988)
* Dark Star (1991)
* The Polish Officer (1995)
* The World at Night (1996)
* Red Gold (1999)
* Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
* Blood of Victory (2003)
* Dark Voyage (2004)
* The F...more
More about Alan Furst...
Night Soldiers novels
* Night Soldiers (1988)
* Dark Star (1991)
* The Polish Officer (1995)
* The World at Night (1996)
* Red Gold (1999)
* Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
* Blood of Victory (2003)
* Dark Voyage (2004)
* The F...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
