Mission to Paris: A Novel [Hardcover]

Alan Furst (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 12, 2012

It is the late summer of 1938, Europe is about to explode, the Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie for Paramount France. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich Foreign Ministry has for years been waging political warfare against France, using bribery, intimidation, and corrupt newspapers to weaken French morale and degrade France’s will to defend herself.
 
For their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence, and they attack him. 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 being run out of the American embassy in Paris.
 
From Alan Furst, the bestselling author, often praised as the best spy novelist ever, comes a novel that’s truly hard to put down. Mission to Paris includes beautifully drawn scenes of romance and intimacy, and the novel is alive with extraordinary characters: the German Baroness von Reschke, a famous hostess deeply involved in Nazi clandestine operations; the assassins Herbert and Lothar; the Russian film actress and spy Olga Orlova; the Hungarian diplomat and spy, Count Janos Polanyi; along with the French cast of Stahl’s movie, German film producers, and the magnetic women in Stahl’s life, the socialite Kiki de Saint-Ange and the émigré Renate Steiner.
 
But always at the center of the novel is the city of Paris, the heart and soul of Europe—its alleys and bistros, hotels grand and anonymous, and the Parisians, living every night as though it was their last. As always, Alan Furst brings to life both a dark time in history and the passion of the human hearts that fought to survive it.

Advance praise for Mission to Paris
 
“The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carré fan, this is definitely a novel for you.”—James Patterson
 
“I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business—the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.”—Vince Flynn
 
Praise for Alan Furst
 
“Unfolds like a vivid dream . . . One couldn’t ask for a more engrossing novel.”—The Wall Street Journal, about Spies of the Balkans
 
“Though set in a specific place and time, Furst’s books are like Chopin’s nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell.”—Los Angeles Times, about The Spies of Warsaw
 
“Alan Furst’s novels swing a beam into the shadows at the edges of the great events leading to World War II. Readers come knowing he’ll deliver effortless narrative.”—USA Today, about The Foreign Correspondent
 
“Positively bristles with plot, characters and atmosphere . . . Dark Voyage has the ingredients of several genres—the mystery, the historical novel, the espionage thriller, the romance—but it rises above all of them.”—The Washington Post, about Dark Voyage
 
“No other espionage writer touches [Furst’s] stylish forays into Budapest and Berlin, Moscow and Paris. No other writer today captures so well the terror and absurdity of the spy, the shabby tension and ennui of émigré communities at the time. His characters are hopeless, lethal, charming. His voice is, above all, knowing.”—Boston Sunday Globe, about Blood of Victory

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Guest Reviewer: Justin Cronin on Mission to Paris by Alan Furst
Justin Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writers’ Award. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Code, Massachusetts.

Fans of Alan Furst are a passionate lot, and I count myself among them. Put a group of Furst’s readers in a room, and before long they will be ardently advocating for their favorites (I always come out swinging for The World at Night), only to change their minds, and change them again, as they are reminded of an especially harrowing episode in The Polish Officer, or a perfect turn of phrase in Blood of Victory, or a sumptuous love scene in The Spies of Warsaw.

So which of Furst’s novels is his best? In my opinion, it’s an eleven-way tie.

Now, make that twelve.

Furst’s elegant thrillers of World War II Europe are often grouped with the works Graham Greene and John le Carre for the literary quality of his prose. The comparison is apt, but Furst is really one of a kind: a novelist whose body of work has recast his genre, elevating it to the level of literature. He has a way of getting everything right, putting every sentence to flawless use with a compact, suggestive style. In just a few brush strokes, Furst can capture the essence of a character—man or woman, friend or foe, Gestapo officer or society doyenne—and his ability to evoke a setting makes me weep with envy. Furst’s foggy Paris streets and glittering salons aren’t just places we see; we actually seem to visit them, bathing in their rich atmospheres. When a Furst character steps into a café in the 16th Arrondissment, you can practically smell the Gauloises smoke wafting from the pages.

But what truly sets Furst apart is his characters’ alignment with their circumstances. Like every great novelist, he understands that history is an overlay of private lives and public events, and therein lies the richest, most morally edifying human drama. Furst’s protagonists aren’t professional spies. Dashing, yes. Romantic, to be sure. Capable of the bon mot, without doubt. But in their hearts, they are men and women like the rest of us, adrift in the currents of their lives. It’s the exigencies of war, with all its political murk and unlikely gunpoint bedfellows, that ignite them to personal heroism. You can hear them saying, with existential fatalism, “Well, it’s been a marvelous life—wonderful food, sumptuous parties, and surprising nights of love—but I guess it’s over now. I’ll have to become something more. Count me in.”

Mission to Paris is trademark Furst, a book not merely to read but to luxuriate in. Vienna-born Fredric Stahl, nee Franz Stalka, is a Hollywood actor of modest renown sent to Paris to star in a French movie named, ironically, “Apres la Guerre” (“After the War”). The year is 1938; Hitler has just taken Czechoslovakia and set his sights on Poland. With his American connections, high profile, and Germanic ancestry, Stahl attracts the interest of the political arm of the Reich’s Foreign Ministry; their goal is to manipulate him into making a public declaration against French rearmament. Initially, all Stahl wants to do is enjoy his time in Paris, where fond memories and sensual adventures await, and finish his film, for which he has high hopes. But he can’t stay on the sidelines for long; the next thing he knows, he’s flying to Berlin to judge a film festival of nakedly propagandist “mountain movies,” with stacks of Swiss francs stuffed inside his suit to purchase Nazi secrets. The night he meets his contact—the glamorous Russian actress Olga Orlova, who proves surprisingly adept with a silencer—Stahl awakens to the smell of smoke and the sound of shattering glass: beyond the windows of his hotel room, Kristallnacht is in full swing.

What happens then? Please. I’ve said too much as it is.

Suffice to say that for Furst’s legion of the obsessed, the novel is everything we crave and more. And for newcomers—why there should still be any, I simply don’t know—it’s certain to send them back into his rich body of work, hungry for more.

Review

“This is the romantic Paris to make a tourist weep … The brilliant historical flourishes seem to create – or recreate – a world … In Furst’s densely populated books, hundred 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

“Alan Furst again shows why he is a grandmaster of the historical espionage genre. Furst not only vividly re-creates the excitement and growing gloom of the City of Light in 1938-39, as war with Nazi Germany looms, but also demonstrates a profound knowledge of the political divisions and cultural sensibilities of that bygone era … As summer or subway reading goes, it doesn't get more action-packed and grippingly atmospheric than this.”
—The Boston Globe

“Between them, Fredric and Paris make this a book no reader will put down to the final page. Furst evokes the city and the prewar anxiety with exquisite tension that is only a bit relieved by Fredric’s encounters with several women, each a vivid and attractive character. Critics compare Furst to Graham Greene and John le Carré, but the time has come for this much-published author (this is his ninth World War II novel after Spies of the Balkans) to occupy his own pinnacle as a master of historical espionage.”
—Library Journal (starred)

“Furst conveys a strong sense of the era, when responding to a knock might open the door to the end of one’s days. The novel recalls a time when black and white applied to both movies and moral choices. It’s a tale with wide appeal.”
—Kirkus (starred)

“[Furst] is most at home in Paris, which is why legions of his fans, upon seeing only the title of his latest book, will immediately feel pulses quicken … Furst has been doing this and doing it superbly for a long time now … Long ago Furst made the jump from genre favorite to mainstream bestsellerdom; returning to his signature setting, Paris, he only stands to climb higher.”
—Booklist (starred)
 
“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 … Like Graham Greene, Furst creates believable characters caught up, with varying degrees of willingness, in the parade of political life. And because they care, the reader does, too … Furst is one of the finest spy novelists working today, and, from boudoir to the beach, Mission to Paris is perfect summer reading.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
 
“The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carré fan, this is definitely a novel for you.”
—James Patterson
 
"I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business--the most talented espionage novelist of our generation."
—Vince Flynn

“Reading Mission to Paris is like sipping a fine Chateau Margaux: Sublime!”
—Erik Larson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (June 12, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781400069484
• ISBN-13: 978-1400069484
• ASIN: 1400069483
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (290 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 132 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Actor, hedonist, spy - Paris 1938 - 3+ April 26, 2012

By Blue in Washington TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Allan Furst's WWII-era espionage novels are always entertaining and "Mission to Paris" is no exception. In the tradition of the author's previous work, there is a male protagonist working against the Nazis in a European setting (Paris and Berlin mostly this time), with a supporting cast of interesting characters (friends, lovers, collaborators and conniving opponents with vicious intent). Fans of the genre know that Furst's books are a kind of literary comfort food--this one is French bistro cuisine all the way.

More specifically, the focus of "Mission..." is film actor Fredric Stahl, an Austrian-born emigre who has built a successful career in Hollywood and finds himself, in mid-1938, loaned out by his studio to a French film company to star in a "Beau Geste" kind of flick that ironically is a commentary on the tragedies of war. Arriving in Paris, Stahl soon finds himself the center of attention for a group of German sympathizers bent on keeping France from opposing Hitler's ambitions in Europe. Stahl's own nascent political views are very much in the other direction and he is gradually dragged into a propaganda war that is heating up in Paris and elsewhere. All of this happens, while he undertakes the demanding work of making the film, "Apres La Guerre". Eventually, and very much against his own will and inclination, Stahl's position as a highly visible public figure leads to increasingly dangerous involvement with the Nazis.

While "Mission to Paris" is a good read, I found it to have less edge and dynamic tension than most of its predecessors. The protagonist, for example, is a decent and interesting guy, but doesn't come across as the brightest bulb in the chandelier at times. He's a bit jaded and ambivalent about most everything in his rather soft life, but is definitely committed to maintaining his creature comforts which include wine, women and food, more or less in that order. Stahl's anti-Nazism is instinctive but not especially active or passionate, even at the end of the story when the situation becomes increasingly dangerous for him and his nearest and dearest.

The opposition (Nazis mostly) doesn't didn't seem that compelling either. The Paris-based German spies and operatives are often bumblers and/or cartoonish. The most dangerous among this crowd turns out to be a bit lazy in the end. Secondary characters and their connections with protagonist Stahl are not always convincing (for me, at least).

Despite my qualms, I should add that author Furst has provided an interesting context for the book--the cafes, hotels and boulevards of Paris, and the backdrop of pre-WWII filmmaking is extremely interesting--engrossing even. Overall, this is a pleasant and enjoyable read, even if it doesn't always stir you.

128 of 142 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Furst does a great job making the Nazis creepy even when they're just on a PR offensive April 26, 2012

By Daniel Berger VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

For true believers, nothing is better than a new Alan Furst book. Once more, Europe is on the edge of World War II. Once more, someone who wasn't planning on it is drawn into the fight. And once more, you want to join him and enlist.

Fredric Stahl, hero of this one, is a little different from Furst's usual military men and cops. He's a celebrity, a Hollywood star, an Austrian-born leading man now in Paris to make a movie, loaned by Warner Brothers to Paramount in return for Gary Cooper. Stahl recalls the carefree Paris of the 1920s, where he first got into film, but now wonders how wise it is to visit the Paris of 1938.

Now there's foreboding of war: Hitler has demanded and got Czechoslovakia, and some, but not enough, see the Anglo-French appeasement will merely encourage a bully who feeds on fear. The French call up the reserves, then let them go, but the crisis puts everyone's nerves on edge.

Not everyone thinks war is inevitable. But the parties wanting to avoid it at any cost, the Franco-German friendship types, the war-is-too-terrible-and-we-must-never-fight-another types - are, rather than the usual left-wing pacifists, all directed and funded by Berlin. Publishers are being paid off to manipulate French public opinion. Pro-fascist French industrialists are in on it. And wouldn't this cabal love to have the movie star Stahl come out against war?

Stahl is first cultivated, then stalked by friends of the Reich. Then an American consul asks if Stahl can help his adopted homeland. Stahl wants nothing to do with the Nazis, but realizes it's time to make a stand, and the way he can help is by acting - going along with them, acting like he doesn't mind to carry out a secret mission. Meanwhile, though, his film friends wonder which side he's really on.

What's great here is how chilling Furst makes the Nazi approaches to Stahl - not the threats, but the inducements, offers of meals, parties and luxurious travel by loathsome people. Perhaps because they're fresher, perhaps because they're subtle and well-done, because we know where the history leads, these are somehow scarier than more familiar scenes of Nazi menace. And the bonhomie is only skin deep; the threats, the menace and the violence lurk just underneath.

Furst adroitly shows the Nazi propaganda paving the way for war. What's in their newspapers and films, their endless and false claims of the persecution of Germans in neighboring lands. And, most chillingly, their certitude that there will be a war, that they'll win it and that anyone who's smart, and knows what's good for them, will join them now.

Furst, who started getting into this in "The Spies of Warsaw", does a service laying out the twists and turns of the French situation leading up to the war, which most Americans know little about. Leon Blum, Edouard Daladier, the Popular Front, Paris newspapers of the right, left and center; tycoons like Taittinger, Michelin, Coty, and Hennessy: he shows how they all fit together, the growing rift among the French about whether to even resist the Nazis at all, and the fateful price the world will pay for their divide.

Germany conquered France easily, Furst suggests, because the French right saw the Nazis as allies and for years deliberately sapped their own nation's will and ability to fight against them. (Stalin's Communists were guilty of the same thing.)
The plot lets Furst write once more about Paris, his favorite setting. There's the obligatory scene at the Brasserie Heininger, where a single bullet hole in the mirror - ah, but real Furst fans don't need this sentence finished, because we've read it three or four times before. (But try the choucroute!)

A cameo appearance by Count Polanyi from "Kingdom of Shadows", whom Stahl suspects is not just a Hungarian diplomat. And of course, a tramp steamer out of Constanta . . . a lot of delicious meals and unusual Continental booze like strega and slivovitz . . . languidly smoked cigarettes . . a pistol in a suitcase . . . a garter belt slowly unhooked while outside, the rain clouds form over Europe. Admit it, you love it. I'm helpless before it.

P.S. Stahl's love interest, Renate Steiner, bears the name of the composer who wrote the score to "Casablanca" - Max Steiner. There's no better place for a Casablanca nod than an Alan Furst novel.

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold." Prince Metternich April 29, 2012

By Leonard Fleisig TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

It is autumn 1938 and the German government has decided to make Paris sneeze violently as it carries on its preparations for war. Determined to avenge the ignominy of Versailles, the German Foreign Ministry sought to destabilize the already fragile French Third Republic by co-opting willing and unwilling fifth columnists to do their bidding. It was a cold war designed to soften the French before the onslaught of the real war that everyone seemed to know was coming. That is the historical back drop for Alan Furst's excellent new novel, "Mission to Paris."

Furst comes from a line of writers that can be traced back to both Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. Like Ambler, Furst often takes an unassuming, or unwitting civilian and immerses him in a world of mystery and intrigue in pre-World War II Europe. Mission to Paris follows this format and Furst does it in such a masterful way that I think it fair to say that Furst truly is worthy of the comparison to Ambler. He stands on his own now and really does not need to be compared to anyone to establish his bona fides.

Mission to Paris is set (as the title suggests) in Paris with side-trips to Berlin, Morocco, and Hungary. The unwitting protagonist is one Fredric Stahl. Born in Austria, Stahl made his way to California as a young man and is now one of Hollywood's leading men. He is sent to Paris by his studio head Jack Warner to do a movie with an international cast. The German foreign ministry has decided that Stahl should be enlisted to aid them in their cause and that sets up the story to follow.

I think it unwise to get into plot details so I'll simply state that Furst's strong point has always been how he sets the scene. His descriptions of the streets of Paris and Berlin reek of authenticity. Similarly, Furst has a keen eye for the inner life of his protagonists. Almost invariably Furst manages to convey a real sense of how those protagonists think and feel. Both of these elements of his writing generally dominate his plotting and are primarily responsible for getting the reader to turn to the next page. In this instance, Furst takes a frog in the pot of water approach to his story. Stahl's introduction to the dark world of Germany's `political cold warfare' is set on low and finally brought to a boil. Stahl's reactions to the heat being turned up is handled exceptionally well. The story kept me engaged and the ending was very well done.

In addition to Stahl, Furst introduces us to a very well-drawn cast of characters, especially that of Olga Orlova. Orlova, a Russian émigré living in Berlin is reputed to be Russian novelist Mikhail Lermontov's descendant. A film star in Germany she is known to be on of Hitler's favorite actresses. She may or may not be everything she appears to be and Stahl's relationship with her is one of the keys to the plot. This was of particular interest to me because it appears clear that Orlova is based on the very real Olga Chekhova, Anton Chekhov's niece, a well-known actress in pre-war Germany and quite likely a Soviet spy. In my 2004 review of historian Anthony Beevor's excellent The Mystery of Olga Chekhova I noted that the real Olga's story reminded me "of the noir-like novels of Alan Furst, whose tales of Soviet espionage and counter-espionage center on tales of similar acts of espionage taken on by Russian and other East European émigrés in the 1930's and 1940's". Needless to say I was delighted by this coincidence and it confirmed for me what I always suspected, that Furst's attention to historical detail is very strong.

Ernest Hemingway once said that "[I]f you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." Alan Furst's "Mission to Paris" is a moveable feast in its own right. Enjoy. L. Fleisig