Saturday, March 31, 2007

Alan Furst's "The Foreign Correspondent"

Alan Furst, whom the New York Times calls "America’s preeminent spy novelist," is the author of Night Soldiers (1988), Dark Star (1991), The Polish Officer (1995), The World at Night (1996), Red Gold (1999), Kingdom of Shadows (2000), Blood of Victory (2002), Dark Voyage (2004), and The Foreign Correspondent (2006).

He applied the "Page 99 Test" to The Foreign Correspondent and reported the following:
Let's see, page 99, hmm. Three foreign correspondents -- Havas, Reuters, the London Times -- hiring a taxi to get to Prague for the German occupation of March, 1939, and the line, "When your country is being occupied, best stay home," an observation on the deserted streets.

I guess I'd read the novel, based on this test: I like the period, when it really seemed that Adolph Hitler would rule the world, and my heroes and heroines who, in rather quiet and non-thriller fashion, helped to make that not happen.

I'm best for the sophisticated reader, which is the reader who reads lots of books, so I fall right in with the page 99 project.
Visit Alan Furst's website and read an excerpt from The Foreign Correspondent.

--Marshal Zeringue