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The Foreign Correspondent (Night Soldiers, #9)
by Alan Furst
by Alan Furst
I picked this book up because I was so taken with the first Furst book I read, "The Spies of Warsaw." Also, Furst is considered a master of the historical spy novel, and he is writing about the time period I am writing about. More or less. So why not sit back and watch a master at work?
I found "The Foreign Correspondent" to be slightly disappointing, particularly when held up to "Warsaw."
The problem I think I had with this novel was that we never really got to know enough about the main character. Which sounds funny - his name literally appears on every single page - but still, there was something distant about the way Furst presented him to us. As a result, there didn't seem to be as much at stake for him - though obviously a journalist who dabbles in spycraft on the eve of WWII could certainly lose his head for it. It was just that I had a hard time caring about him.
I kept feeling like there was going to be another character introduced who would be our protaganist. But, no, it was Weisz. And then we are eventually introduced to a past love interest who motivates the second half of the novel. But wait, what about her is so special? Nothing that I can see. And she appears so late in the story - is in and out again (no pun intended) - she wasn't enough for me to see Weisz take the risks he did, and since she wasn't worth it, I had a hard time empathizing with him.
Furst does a more capitivating job for me in bringing secondary and teritiary characters to life: the resistors in Italy, the drunken Greek sailors, the Nazi propaganda ministers, the British spymaster, and certainly the Genoan black marketeers - though all their parts are much smaller, I felt a greater connection with them than I did with Carlo Weisz.
I still am a huge Alan Furst fan - I just think the story of Carlo Weisz might have been a bit of a misfire. I have more of his novels in the queue and I look forward to reading them. If you are a fan of WWII spy novels, I recommend Mr. Furst to you, though perhaps not this one, but rather "The Spies of Warsaw."
I found "The Foreign Correspondent" to be slightly disappointing, particularly when held up to "Warsaw."
The problem I think I had with this novel was that we never really got to know enough about the main character. Which sounds funny - his name literally appears on every single page - but still, there was something distant about the way Furst presented him to us. As a result, there didn't seem to be as much at stake for him - though obviously a journalist who dabbles in spycraft on the eve of WWII could certainly lose his head for it. It was just that I had a hard time caring about him.
I kept feeling like there was going to be another character introduced who would be our protaganist. But, no, it was Weisz. And then we are eventually introduced to a past love interest who motivates the second half of the novel. But wait, what about her is so special? Nothing that I can see. And she appears so late in the story - is in and out again (no pun intended) - she wasn't enough for me to see Weisz take the risks he did, and since she wasn't worth it, I had a hard time empathizing with him.
Furst does a more capitivating job for me in bringing secondary and teritiary characters to life: the resistors in Italy, the drunken Greek sailors, the Nazi propaganda ministers, the British spymaster, and certainly the Genoan black marketeers - though all their parts are much smaller, I felt a greater connection with them than I did with Carlo Weisz.
I still am a huge Alan Furst fan - I just think the story of Carlo Weisz might have been a bit of a misfire. I have more of his novels in the queue and I look forward to reading them. If you are a fan of WWII spy novels, I recommend Mr. Furst to you, though perhaps not this one, but rather "The Spies of Warsaw."
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