Red Gold – by Alan Furst

Alan Furst is routinely hailed as possibly the greatest living writer of traditional espionage fiction. He sets his books in exotic times and places — this one, for example, recounts stories of the French resistance and is mostly set in Paris in the early 1940s.


I read about Furst and snapped up a couple of his books. This is the second one I read and, like the first, I have to admit to being a bit disappointed.
There is atmosphere galore — the characters seem to run from one hotel to restaurant to cafe, and then to another.
But there is little characterization, and not much of a plot.
I think so much can be done with this era and authors like Graham Greene and John Le Carre showed what could be done with the espionage novel.
Perhaps Furst has done better work — but Red Gold just doesn’t cut it for me.


Still, if you want to see for yourself, you can order this book from a unionized, online bookshop.

1 Comment on "Red Gold – by Alan Furst"

  1. “Red Gold just doesn’t cut it for me.”
    Good – my reading list is already way too long!

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