Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375759994
ISBN: 0375759999
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 464
Publication Date: 2002-07-09
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: 2002-07-09
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Paris, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague, 1937. In the back alleys of nighttime Europe, war is already under way. André Szara, survivor of the Polish pogroms and the Russian civil wars and a foreign correspondent for Pravda, is co-opted by the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and becomes a full-time spymaster in Paris. As deputy director of a Paris network, Szara finds his own star rising when he recruits an agent in Berlin who can supply crucial information. Dark Star captures not only the intrigue and danger of clandestine life but the day-to-day reality of what Soviet operatives call special work.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Way too ponderous for me
Comment: I am a huge WWII history fan, but this novel is so enthralled with its own overwrought descriptions of minor details (eg, the wine offered to Szara by the rich French Jew) that the story is lost and I stopped caring about the (lack of) action. I gave up half way through. On to the new translation of War and Peace.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: An honest masterpiece of ambience
Comment: Alan Furst's "Dark Star" bravely addresses two taboos of the 20th century history: the intrinsic but carefully camouflaged evil of communism and the role of Jewish individuals (quite a few of them) in, first, propagating it and then falling victim to it. At the same time, however, the novel masterfully conveys the tragic choice laying before the conscientious people who lived in those dark times, i.e., between the Nazi monster and the Stalinist moloch, both totalitarian and inhuman.
Alan Furst's trademark style is full of ambience and irony, and his facts are almost always correct (two exceptions: the province of Galicia was not named after the Spanish Galicia - the name is a corrupted form of the original eponym "Halicz" - and the Russian army did not enter Paris after the battle of Waterloo in 1815.) Overall, the novel is a true feast for discerning readers.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoy WWII fiction? You'll gobble this up!
Comment: Dark Star, like Night Soldiers, is a solid four stars. People who seek lots of action in spy books need to go elsewhere for their kicks. The action in this book is in Furst's rich descriptions of a sordid period in world history. And the descriptiveness of Stalin and Hitler's chokehold on European affairs more than gives me all the intensity I needed. I've found that when reading books like this that have a lot of characters with Eastern European and Russian names, that I enjoy the book more if I write those names down along with their various roles. That way, I can refer back to the list to clarify who's who and keep the storyline straight. Even then, there are occasional gaps where I have trouble piecing the story together. It's as though the author gives us A, B, C, E, and G, while making us figure out D and F.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Affected me like few books have...
Comment: I'd give more stars if I could! As I read this masterful book, I wanted to scream at all the bad history teachers and ridiculous espionage writers we've had to suffer through. Glitzy James Bond places like Monte Carlo aren't the stuff of Alan Furst -- his characters are more likely to be found in decrepit hotels, barns, and always, it seems, in darkness. When I try to imagine what a film version of a Furst novel would look like, it's always in black and white. (Too many viewings of The Third Man in my formative years, I've been told.)

The creeping sense of dread in Europe that Furst so ably conveys in this book actually made me put it down for a few days at a time at many points in the story. And, as he always does, I've since learned, he made me terribly anxious over the fate of the characters, who always seem too much like "regular guys" to have any hope of prevailing against the sinister forces of Hitler, Stalin, and centuries-old traditions of hate that recent history in the Balkans and elsewhere show to be lurking nearer than we like to think.

I've learned far more about what it felt like to be in Europe leading up to and during the war my father fought in from Furst than from anything else. This was my first Furst, and I've gone on to devour "The Polish Officer," "Night Soldiers," and "Kingdom of Shadows." Along with "Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by LeCarre, who shone his light on the Cold War, "Dark Star" is absolutely on my desert island list.

Now if only someone had told me the proper order to read Furst's books in! Sigh...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Alan Furst is outstanding - again!
Comment: Alan Furst is one of the best writers of suspense/thrillers that I have ever encountered. I don't know how he does it, but Furst pours more atmosphere, emotion, and drama into each page than any other author. While other authors are adept at telling an interesting story, Furst is able to draw you into the story until you find yourself immersed in it. This is fourth of Furst's novels I have read, and each one has been a gem. If you enjoy espionage/suspense/thrillers or WWII-based fiction, you will be thrilled with Dark Star.

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