Today, the espionage genre is firmly back in the limelight – and Alan Furst (author of Spies of the Balkans) is one of the genre’s most highly regarded authors, with the kind of solidity of characterisation and narrative reach that distinguished the best writers of the past. Such writers, in fact, as the British giant Anthony Price, who many consider is comparable to more famous spy novelists such as John le Carré. If you haven't tried Price’s cleverly written, complex and sophisticated espionage thrillers (for example Our Man in Camelot), you owe it to yourself to do so.
Featured on The TV Book Club on More4 on 20 Mar 2011.
With a remarkable cast of operatives, SPIES OF THE BALKANS is a brilliant new espionage novel from Alan Furst featuring Salonika's dashing chief detective, Costa Zannis. It's 1940 and Germany are determined to get their hands on the region just as Zannis becomes involved in an audacious plot with the Resitance to smuggle Jews to Istanbul. All is fine until a reckless love affair jeopardises just about everything.
Salonika, 1940. To the bustle of tavernas and the smell of hashish, a secret war is taking shape. In the backrooms of barbers, envelopes change hands, and in the Club de Salonique the air is thick with whispers. Costa Zannis is the city's dashing chief detective - a man with contacts high and low, in the Balkans and beyond. And as unknown ships and British 'travel writers' trickle through the port, he is a man very much in demand. Having helped defeat Italy in the highlands of Macedonia, Zannis returns to a city holding its breath. Mussolini's forces have retreated - for now - but German sights are fixed firmly on the region. And as the situation in Germany worsens, Zannis becomes involved in an audacious plot - smuggling Jews to Istanbul, through the back door of Europe. The British hear he can penetrate the continent's closed borders, and soon Zannis is embroiled in the resistance, and in a reckless love affair that could jeopardise everything. With a remarkable cast of operatives, SPIES OF THE BALKANS is a brilliant espionage novel from Alan Furst.
