I’ve long maintained that Alan First needs
to be read in a cold climate. There’s something about him that calls for a
stinging rain against the window and an audible wind. Presumably for commercial
reasons, his publishers have lately taken to releasing his work in time for
summer reading, and that doesn’t work for me. I tried reading “Blood of
Victory” in an Umbrian villa by the pool, and it didn’t hand together at all,
so since then, no matter when they’re released I wait for nights to grow
shorter and the right time to put some Furst into my life.
My reading of “Mission to Paris “ might
violate this, because there’s no stinging rain, and the temperature’s anything
but cold, but somehow early autumn in the art deco surroundings of Shanghai’s
Peace Hotel, with jazz tinkling up through the atrium, wine sipped from elegant
glassware, and the knowledge that Noel Coward wrote Private Lives while staying
a few doors down the hallway somehow all makes it okay.
Eleven years ago “Night Soldiers” came with
me to Moscow. I still miss the sprawling narratives and enormous purview of
Furst’s earlier works, but after what’s felt like a little bit of a stutter
with “The Foreign Correspondent” and “Spies of the Balkans” Furst seems to be
hitting the mark in a way that resonates that little bit more.
Paris has always been a constant in Furst’s
work, and here it’s at the heart of the novel, and deep down this works. Ultimately
for all it can feel a little repetitive, Paris is a happier hunting ground for
Furst.
“Mission to Paris” is all about pre-war
cinema – people always liken Furst to watching Casablanca for the first time
round, so somehow it makes sense that he’s written something so overtly about
cinema – okay, we’ve been here before with the Casson books (who gets a nod
here, with the marvellous description of him doing “tasty little films” about
gangsters with hearts of gold) but here the film industry is front and centre.
We’ve got a memorable Kristallnacht scene,
where Stahl is at the Adlon while Berlin burns. This is redolent of the Iron
Exchange chapter in “Dark Star”, ramming home the lingering menace of Nazi
Germany as it descended into humanity’s abyss.
Orlova (a marvellous character who, one
hopes, will be made more of) reminds of David Downing’s Effi (surname?) – which
leads on to the other tribute that can’t surely be accidental – can a character
called Stahl who once played “Dr Lawton” really be anything other than a veiled
hat tip to John Lawton and his very different historical novels which
successfully transcend the pigeon hole of “period crime fiction” or “historical
thriller”.
Downside? The denouement seems somehow
rushed. Escape is never quite so simple, or is it? There feels as though there
should be more of a story here, more opportunity to explore and draw out the
story, which otherwise has a languid pace to it? Or is this a reflection of a
hunger on the part of the reader to discover the fates of characters they have
to care deeply about? Either way the ending doesn’t quite feel as sorted as the
rest of the novel –the ambiguity you find in “Dark Voyage” or “The Polish
Officer” adds a lot – equally the unravelling at the end of “Dark Star” is
ultimately highly satisfying – tying off knots makes for a more satisfying
short term reading experience, but lessens the chance of the book remaining
with you over a more prolonged period of time.
Ultimately though, it’s an Alan Furst book.
Whatever warts it might have it’s an evocation of the world in a dark time
that’s completely absorbing and makes your life better for having read it. It’s
autumn, the light is growing shorter, there are foghorns on the Huangpu: it’s
the ideal time to read it.
