Customer Reviews

Dark Voyage

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dark Voyage represents something of a departure from Alan Furst's previous series of historical spy novels set in Europe just before and during the Second World War. Typically, Furst's novels are land-based and are set in cafes, bars, and furtive meeting places in Bucharest, Prague, Berlin, and Paris. His protagonists are typically Polish, Rumanian, Russian, and French émigrés or refugees caught in a tangled web of espionage, and counter-espionage as the NKVD and other underground groups do battle with the Nazis. Deceit is the rule, not the exception. It is a world of night and dark shadows.

Dark Voyage, at least on the surface, is a bit different. Dark Voyage is not set amongst the smoky bistros of occupied Paris, Bucharest, or Warsaw. The action is set at sea, on board the M/V Noordendam, a Dutch cargo ship captained by Eric deHaan. The Noordendam, an aging tramp steamer nearing the end of its useful life at sea, is pressed into service by the Royal Navy. DeHaan and his crew and and passengers, including a Polish engineer, a Jewish medical orderly fleeing the Nazis, a beautiful Russian `journalist' fleeing in fear from her Soviet bosses, and others are asked to undertake three missions, each one more dangerous than the last. The Noordendam, repainted and sailing under the colors of a sunken, neutral Spanish merchant ship, the M/V Santa Rosa delivers munitions and supplies to the British Expeditionary Forces in Crete; transports British commandos to conduct a raid on the North African Coast in Tunisia; and then up through the Baltic Sea on a secret mission that could save Britain from annihilation during the blitz.

Despite this difference in setting the essential elements that render Furst's novels so downright enjoyable remain in place. First, Furst has never painted his characters in a superficial black-and-white way. His `heroes' are flawed and their motivation is often as self-interested as those of the `villains'. Furst's evocation of his characters is both subtle and nuanced. The Nazis were, in fact, true villains but the battles waged against them were not always undertaken by knights in shining armor but by incredibly flawed, if well-intentioned human beings. Second, Furst's prose is not at all tendentious or overly self-important. He paints extraordinarily vivid word pictures that capture not just the light but, more importantly, the shadows of a world engulfed in a horrible war. Third, life is not full of happy-endings. Not every story has the type of closure one might hope for. Furst does not go for cheap endings. The story may end, not always happily, but it is clear that the life of his characters will go on. The reader may hunger for more as he or she hits the last page, but for Furst at least, our endings are ahead of us. The war goes on and so must the lives of his characters.

Some have expressed disappointment in this novel or indicated that it does not quite live up to the high standards one has come to expect from Furst. I respectfully disagree. Heightened expectations often lead to disappointment. I think the high expectations one sets for a writer of Furst's caliber often leads to disappointment when each novel is not markedly better than the last. I, for one, enjoyed this book as much as his previous work. The setting and cast of characters was different to be sure but the quality of Furst's writing and his ability to tell a compelling story remains unchanged. I enjoyed this work.

Alan Furst's literary domain is Europe -- mostly eastern and central Europe -- in those few years on either side of 1939, when Europe stood on the brink of World War Two and then plunged headlong into chaos. What is most enticing about Furst's works is that he creates such a convincing atmosphere that breathes with the life of that place and time. I am one of those readers who habitually translate the printed page into mental picture, and in the case of Furst's novels I find the movie playing in my mind to be appropriately in cinematic black and white. I half expect Peter Lorre to be lurking in a dark doorway or Sidney Greenstreet to be behind that beaded curtain.

Alan Furst's new book, "Dark Voyage", is from the familiar period and area -- 1941 Europe -- but there is something of a departure this time around in that the primary setting is a ship, the Dutch tramp steamer Noordendam under the command of Eric DeHaan, ship and captain pressed into the service of the Naval Intelligence arm of the Dutch Government in exile, clandestinely transporting under false colors people and material to wherever orders require. The cast of characters, as always, is a mixture of diverse and uncertain nationalities, appropriate in an era when nationalities themselves were shifting at the whim of events. I found "Dark Voyage" to be a compelling, if episodic, reading experience as the weary Dutch freighter and her weary crew go about the dark business of a shadow war.

Furst's book are not a series, although a minor character in one book may turn up as the central figure in another, and can generally be read without any particular order. And for those of you who are familiar with Furst's novels, yes, Table Fourteen at the Brasserie Heininger in Paris does make its customary appearance.

You have to like this period of time. I don't mean "like" in the sense that it held the permissive excitement of the roaring twenties or the emotional promiscuity of the sixties, but 'like'as in fascinated. Like as in haunted. Like as in troubled.

Additionally, it is the true Armageddon of our memory, of our time. Hitler and Stalin ARE the evil empire and should they be victorious, the world would be oh so different than it is now.

Finally, I think if you read about that time, whether it's the novels of Deaver or Diehl or Woods on the one hand or the extraordinary Beevor's "Stalingrad" and "The Fall of Berlin," or Ambrose' "Easy Company" or Ryan's "D-Day," one gets the sense that for the Europeans, it wan't all black and white and no, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum didn't epitomize it. Nor Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

So Alan Furst brings to the table a series of novels not in black and white but in gray. Where the characters are motivated by doing the right thing but, where is that damn right thing? And how much of this morality do I have to extrapolate? And are there situational ethics that no one's written about? And do my handlers really care if I win or not, or just that I put on "a bloody good show, mate." And what is winning, anyhow? Is it living? On some days, is it just surviving?

Here Eric DeHaan, Ship's Captain, is seduced by Dutch Naval Intelligence. Well, "seduced" implies some volition on his part and clearly, if at all, there is little. His ship, the M/V Noordendam, will be used not so much for tramp steaming but to change it's name to the Santa Rosa, a South American steamer bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Noordendam, and carry men and material to be used against the Nazi effort. Which by now is most of Europe. Captain DeHaan needn't worry about this duplicity because the Santa Rosa, the real one, is stuck in port in South America with repair work taking at a minimum of several months. So right off the bat, you have to know both women are going to go to the same Oscar party wearing the same gown. At some point.

DeHaan sails off to join a British convoy which as you recall from your history is the chickens strolling before the foxes, ripe, target rich plucking for the German Wolfpack. DeHaan's crew is very well described not as misfits but, let's use the current phrase, diverse.

There's actually three stories here, the British convoy trip followed by two others. I didn't mind this. Although loosely related they all carried the common thread of DeHaan sucked along this vortex of espionage that he is uncertain if his handlers understand.

DeHaan is as "everyman" as Captain John Miller in "Ryan" or Lieutenant Winters in "Easy Company." Every once in awhile he wants to ask 'how did I get here?'

Bars on the waterfronts of Alexandria and Lisbon, love affairs with compromised women and friendships with on again off again friends. Like the old gameshow, Who do you Trust?

Excellent work by Mr. Furst. Well worth the read. 5 Stars. Larry Scantlebury

I am a big Alan Furst fan and this book certainly did not disappoint. What I think some of the negative reviews miss is really one of the reasons I have always loved his books....the way Furst creates an atmosphere that captures a time & place. It is not just about the "heart throbbing ending" and never is with a Furst novel. The tension and suspense builds naturally from Furst' ability to describe the smoky, exotic and always dangerous situations and places on the edges of WW II. This is more the strength of a well crafted historical novel rather than the protypical "spy novel".

Alan Furst's books are all set between 1935-1945. Although technically "spy" novels, Furst's novels might just as easily be considered historical fiction. Meticulous research combined with strong character development make each one of Furst's novels a great joy.

Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets

Everyone's a critic. Dark Voyage is claustrophobic, doesn't have the grand sweep of Europe behind it, like Furst's other books. There are too many details about how a ship works. Furst's female characters are cardboard cutouts.

Honestly, there are people who would complain that Christ's Second Coming on earth was causing a traffic jam.

Three and a half stars? Come on! This is a wonderful book, almost as good as my favorites, Kingdom of Shadows and The Polish Officer, and as good as Dark Star, everybody else's favorite.

Furst's dialogue is better than ever, especially the crackling black humor of a dirty war. The Noorendam becomes as much a personality as deHann, and the denoument - the last short section - is heartbreaking.

While it is true that there is no Paris in this book, Dark Voyage actually contains two worlds, the world outside the ship and the ship itself. Beautifully paced, lots of action. Dialogue - like no other author that I have read - that actually lets the reader fill in some of the blanks. Brush strokes that make you feel how the ordinary becomes so horrifying during a war. Great supporting cast, finely drawn.

Five stars.

Another fine historical thriller from Alan Furst. This book depicts the experiences of a Dutch freighter captain and his crew as they work for Allied naval intelligence during WWII. The travels of the ship provide Furst with an opportunity to visit several locales and the book features a substantial group of characters. As with some of the prior Furst novels, the protagonist comes from one of the smaller combatant nations and Furst is essentially highlighting the distinctive historical experience of these nations. There is not a single driving plot, rather a set of variations on the theme of clandestine operations and their human cost. This book features also some vivid writing about naval combat in some lesser known episodes of the war like the Crete campaign and the disastrous withdrawal of the Soviet Navy from the Baltic states. Furst continues to write at a high level.

Personally, I don't think it makes much sense to review Alan Furst's books one at a time, because what he's really doing is painting an enormous picture of World War Two one brushstroke at a time. I marvel at the amount of research he does in order to create each of the worlds his novels inhabit. And of course the writing itself is simply superb, both in the descriptive power of the language he uses, and the way he chooses to pace the stories, letting you in on the details only when he's good and ready, and you're dying to know what happened twenty pages earlier.

I guess because I see all his novels as essentially being chapters in one huge novel, I don't have the issues with this book that several of the other reviewers have mentioned. Yes, it's shorter than I would have liked, but I thought it hung together well. As for the suggestion that Furst is just "a writer of sex scenes", I just think that's ridiculous. I love Furst's books because he gets you into the mood of the period, not because his characters occasionally take a roll in the hay... and by the way, the female characters are rarely stunningly beautiful, as I recall.

I just appreciate the fact that Furst is really taking thousands of pages to tell the story of WW2 in Europe from the perspective of the everyday folks who tried to live through it. Furst tells his tale using lots of colors, and he takes his time doing it.

Furst's series of WWII-era espionage novels tend to eschew traditional narrative in favor of a series of episodes sharing a similar claustrophobic atmosphere in which a grim, reluctant hero must complete some task. The dual heroes of this latest (his eighth) is an aging Dutch tramp freighter and its dour Captain Eric DeHaan. The ship and its crew has been wandering the ports of the world for a year, ever since the Germans occupied Holland in May, 1940. Now, the exiled Dutch government in London has decided to allow the Dutch civilian fleet to be seconded to the British Navy for special operations. To his own fatalistic bemusement the skeptical DeHaan is secretly made a Captain in Royal Dutch Navy. His ship is then repainted, reflagged, and renamed at sea -- reemerging as a neutral Spanish freighter.

Among the crew or along for the ride is Furst's usual grab-bag of Europeans, including a Swiss spy for the British, Falangist Spaniards, anti-Nazi Germans, Jewish refugees, a Polish naval officer, and a female Russian journalist who becomes one of the captain's several bunkmates. The story follows the incognito vessel as it moves amongst the shadowy open ports such as Lisbon, Alexandria, and Tangiers performing various deeds for British intelligence. These episodes include dropping some commandos into North Africa, dropping some ammo off at Crete for the British troops there, before winding things up with a supply drop to the resistance in Sweden.

As usual, atmosphere simply drips from the pages. The freighter's dank smells and cramped cabins come alive as it creaks and groans its way through the story. As others have pointed out, although the book is stuffed with nautical details, they're not always correct, which is likely to irk those with maritime experience. And while the ship and ports are given loving treatment, the same cannot be said of the characters. Furst just doesn't spend enough time on them to make them truly come alive. This is especially true of Captain DeHaan, who should be the protagonist, but ends up a flat figure, suborned to the ship. The story Furst tells is certainly interesting an interesting one, highlighting the shadowy world of merchant shipping in the war, however it generally lacks the suspense one expects from him. It's also much more straightforward than usual, the plot proceeds from point to point without the moral complexities one usually finds in his work. It's not a bad book, just not great, and not as rich as others of his.

Very genuine for this reviewer, who was a WWII tanker and freighter merchant marine seaman. Of course I never had any exerience like those in Dark Voyage but the book rang very true. No fake heroism, but realistic picture of life at sea in the merchant marine at that time. Multi- dimensional and quite gripping plot. In my book, the ending was pure literature at its best.