Night Soldiers 9
My version: Paperback
Genre: Fiction, Second World War
Publisher: W&N
First published: 2007
ISBN: 9780753822302
Pages: 288
Bought
From the cover:
By 1939, thousands of Italian intellectuals, teachers and lawyers, journalists and scientists, had fled Mussolini’s fascist government and found refuge in Paris. There, amidst the poverty and difficulty of émigré life, they joined the Italian resistance, founding an underground press that smuggled news and encouragement back to their lost homeland.
In Paris, in the winter of 1939, a murder/suicide at a lovers’ hotel hits the tabloid press. But this is not a romantic tragedy, it is the work of OVRA, Mussolini’s fascist secret police, and meant to eliminate the editor of Liberazione, a clandestine newspaper published by Italian émigrés. Carlo Weisz, who has fled from Trieste and found work as a foreign correspondent for the Reuters bureau, becomes the new editor.
Weisz is, at that moment, in Spain, reporting on the tragic end of the Spanish civil war, but, as soon as he returns to Paris, he is pursued by the French Surete, by agents of OVRA, and by officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the desperate politics of Europe on the edge of war, a foreign correspondent is a pawn, worth surveillance, or blackmail, or murder.
The Foreign Correspondent is the story of Carlo Weisz and a handful of anti-fascists – the army officer known as Colonel Ferrara, who fights for a lost cause in Spain, Arturo Salamone, the shrewd leader of a resistance group in Paris, and the woman who becomes the love of his Weisz’s life, herself involved in a doomed resistance underground in Berlin, at the heart of Hitler’s Nazi empire.
The Foreign Correspondent is a masterful blend of historical fiction and espionage, set against the ominous backdrop of Europe in the late 1930s. The novel follows the journey of Carlo Weisz, an Italian journalist exiled in Paris after Mussolini’s rise to power. Weisz, a man of principle and quiet courage, finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of resistance and intrigue when he is recruited by British intelligence to aid in the fight against fascism. Furst’s meticulous attention to historical detail immerses the reader in a world of coded messages, clandestine meetings, and the ever-present tension of a continent sliding toward war. The atmosphere is thick with paranoia and moral ambiguity, as Weisz navigates the treacherous landscape of pre-war Europe, where trust is a rare commodity and every decision could mean life or death.
At its heart, The Foreign Correspondent is a story about the power of information and the courage of those who dare to wield it. Weisz’s work as a journalist becomes a weapon in the fight against tyranny, as he uses his skills to expose the truth and undermine the fascist regimes spreading across Europe. Furst’s prose is elegant and restrained, capturing the quiet heroism of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances. The novel explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the personal cost of resistance, all while maintaining a gripping narrative that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. Weisz’s relationships – with lovers, allies, and adversaries – add depth to the story, revealing the human side of a conflict often told through the lens of grand politics and military strategy.
What sets Alan Furst’s work apart (the books I’ve read anyway) is his ability to weave real historical events and figures into his fiction, creating a narrative that feels both authentic and urgent. The Foreign Correspondent is no exception, as it paints a vivid portrait of a continent on the brink, where the stakes of every action are impossibly high. The novel is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of oppression, and a reminder of the importance of truth in a world increasingly dominated by propaganda and deceit. Furst’s deep understanding of the period, combined with his knack for suspense, makes this book an absolutely compelling read.
You can buy The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst from Amazon
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