Mission to Paris - Alan Furst

Mission to Paris

By Alan Furst

  • Release Date: 2012-06-12
  • Genre: Mysteries & Thrillers
Score: 3.5
3.5
From 469 Ratings

Description

“A master spy novelist.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Page after page is dazzling.”—James Patterson
 
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
 
Late summer, 1938. Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich has been waging political warfare against France, and for their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service run out of the American embassy. Mission to Paris is filled with heart-stopping tension, beautifully drawn scenes of romance, and extraordinarily alive characters: foreign assassins; a glamorous Russian actress-turned-spy; and the women in Stahl’s life. At the center of the novel is the city of Paris—its bistros, hotels grand and anonymous, and the Parisians, living every night as though it were their last. Alan Furst brings to life both a dark time in history and the passion of the human hearts that fought to survive it.

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Furst's Midnight in Europe.
 
Praise for Mission to Paris
 
“The most talented espionage novelist of our generation.”—Vince Flynn
 
“Vividly re-creates the excitement and growing gloom of the City of Light in 1938–39 . . . It doesn’t get more action-packed and grippingly atmospheric than this.”—The Boston Globe

“One of [Furst’s] best . . . This is the romantic Paris to make a tourist weep. . . . In Furst’s densely populated books, hundreds of minor characters—clerks, chauffeurs, soldiers, whores—all whirl around his heroes in perfect focus for a page or two, then dot by dot, face by face, they vanish, leaving a heartbreaking sense of the vast Homeric epic that was World War II and the smallness of almost every life that was caught up in it.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“A book no reader will put down until the final page . . . Critics compare [Alan] Furst to Graham Greene and John le Carré [as] a master of historical espionage.”—Library Journal (starred review)
 
“Alan Furst’s writing reminds me of a swim in perfect water on a perfect day, fluid and exquisite. One wants the feeling to go on forever, the book to never end. . . . Furst is one of the finest spy novelists working today.”—Publishers Weekly

Reviews

  • Looking for more

    4
    By FunnelEffect
    Not tops for his opus, but still a good read.
  • A treasure to read!

    5
    By Dough DRT
    I believe someone has mentioned the ending - it's not satisfying, necessarily, but the book was so well written, the characters so wonderful, that I don't mind. It's definitely worth a read - chilling to know what it was like in Paris just before the war. When you had to look over your shoulder at all times, and depend on the kindness of strangers. How lucky we are, those of us who have not experienced that horror!
  • Mission to Paris

    2
    By Found59
    Surprisingly flat and predictable coming from the writer of The Polish Officer. It felt like reading a different author.
  • Not the Best but Still Very Good

    4
    By sweetspacemonkey
    In the old days Furst didn't try to over explain things which he has gone away from which is a drawback of this book. This is just a good book. His other works are great.
  • Mission to Paris

    5
    By Pconsf
    How can you rank books on an ABCDF scale when that author is all A's? I suppose I'd call this one an A- but still fantastic. Alan Furst is he best, most subtle author ever in the suspense genre. Every one of his books give you the atmospheric of being wherever the story is - Berlin, Moscow, Madrid and especially Paris. You can smell the onions and garlic cooking, and taste the red wine. Most important, feel the tension the hero goes through as he's threatened or put in danger. Mission to Paris's Stahl is a pretty normal guy, for a movie actor, but he cannot avoid the Nazis in Paris as they are relentless to get him to help their propaganda cause, or to be killed. My opinion: the best book Furst ever wrote is Night Soldiers - it's got it all. KGB recruitment in Bulgaria, war scenes in The Spanish Civil War, pre-war in Paris, French resistance, it's fantastic. A long but perfect novel - every page, scene and dialog is interesting. I've read all of his and they are all great. Enjoy!
  • Mission in Paris - Furst

    2
    By Lancelot de France
    In e-book form, this novel is missing pages. Especially frustrating, the ending is missing so I have to imagine Stahl and Renate escaped and lived happily ever after. Definitely worth reading and enjoyable, the pages I could read.
  • Missing pages

    1
    By jlaurance
    This book is missing several pages including the entire dénouement.
  • Mission to Paris

    1
    By Bobby See
    Book is boring.......had repetitive and missing pages. Very disappointing and a waste of my time.
  • Mission To Paris

    1
    By Dbones1996
    Based on reviews written and the first few pages that I read, I thought this book would be an interesting read. Wrong. While I had high hopes when I began, this became very predictable, trite, superficial and boring. And that was before I began to see duplicated pages along with missing pages. Don't waste your money.
  • Mission to Paris

    3
    By David S Fishman
    Just finished reading it. It is suspenseful , cleverly constructed, sexy, and entertaining. Although I have no experience reading spy novels, this book is like a movie. I recommend it. DF.