Alan Furst, THE SPIES OF WARSAW

Today's New York Times has a stunning review of Alan Furst's newest espionage novel, THE SPIES OF WARSAW. Calling the novel a "brooding, sophisticated period piece," reviewer Janet Maslin gives it unstinting praise, and says of Furst's work, "His stories combine keen deductive precision with much deeper, more turbulent and impassioned aspects of character. Since they are also soigné and seamy, there is the inevitable woman in the dining car, with whom --"

I halt here, because I haven't yet read the book, and want to follow Maslin's with my own response to it, later in June. Kingdom Books expects some signed copies to arrive here by the middle of the month (yes, we accept reservations).

If you find me a bit hard to reach over the next week, it'll be because I'm re-reading Furst's other novels. Yesterday, here at the shop, one of our favorite collectors said to me, "I've decided Ted Allbeury goes into my top five for espionage." His other listed authors for the category are Deighton, Forsythe, Follett, Le Carré, and Ludlum.

But mine at the moment are Furst and McCarry. Feel free to mention your own nominations, and reasoning.

And while you're waiting for your copy of THE SPIES OF WARSAW, you may want to visit Furst's web site, www.alanfurst.net, which includes the following teaser:

The Spies of Warsaw
An autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers’ bar in the city’s factory district, he will meet with the military attaché from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins The Spies of Warsaw, the brilliant new novel by Alan Furst, lauded by The New York Times as “America’s preeminent spy novelist.”