I’m not a big fan of spy stories, but this novel captured and held my attention. It’s the tale of an expatriate Italian journalist, now a resident of Paris, who gets drawn into international intrigue in 1938-39 as the world marches toward World War II. Furst adroitly references real historical events to ground his book and succeeds in evoking the look and feel of Paris, Berlin and other troubled European cities as the fascists drive people like protagonist Carlo Weiss to fight back, however reluctantly.