Polish Officer [Hardcover]

Alan Furst (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2005

September, 1939. The invading German Wehrmacht blazes a trail of destruction across Poland. Warsaw is surrounded. France and Britain declare war, but do nothing to help. And a Polish resistance movement takes shape under the shadow of occupation, enlisting those willing to risk death in the struggle for their nation's survival. Among them is Captain Alexander de Milja, an officer in the Polish military intelligence service, a cartographer who now must learn a dangerous new role: spymaster in the anti-Nazi underground. Beginning with a daring operation to smuggle the Polish National Gold Reserve to the government in exile, he slips into the shadowy and treacherous front lines of espionage that span occupied Europe; he moves through Poland, France, and the Ukraine, changing identities and staying one step ahead of capture. In Warsaw, he engineers a subversive campaign to strengthen the people's will to resist. In Paris, he poses as a Russian poet, then as a Slovakian coal merchant, drinking champagne in black-market bistros with Nazis while uncovering information about German battle plans.And a love affair with a woman of the French resistance leads him to make the greatest decision of his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With clear, reticent prose and his trademark mastery of historical detail, Furst (Shadow Trade; Night Soldiers) brings vividly to life this WWII-era tale of espionage and bravery, chronicling the work of the Polish underground in Poland, France and the Ukraine. As Warsaw is falling in 1939, Polish Captain Alexander de Milja embarks on a harrowing journey to smuggle the national gold reserves out of the country by rail-the first of many death-defying missions he will undertake for the nascent ZWZ, the Union for Armed Struggle. Under a series of false identities, mingling with the bon vivants of occupied Paris, he later becomes a prized intelligence resource in France, surviving by cunning and passing valuable strategic information to the British. In the novel's final section, de Milja is in even more danger, working as a saboteur based in a Ukrainian forest as the Germans march east. Throughout these dramatic events, Furst's understated narrative is insightful and convincing. The unassuming de Milja-who considers himself merely "unafraid to die, and lucky so far"-proves an engaging protagonist. His exploits and the courageous sacrifices of the ordinary patriots who help him are both thrilling and at times inspiring.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Capt. Alexander de Milja is a chameleon. A cartographer by profession, de Milja works as an intelligence officer in the Polish underground at the outset of World War II. When the Germans discover de Milja's identity in Poland, he goes to France and later Russia to continue his work. De Milja's disguises are many-he passes as a Russian writer, a Czech coal merchant, and a Polish horse breeder-and he embraces each persona completely as he goes about the business of espionage and sabotage. De Milja comes across as a genuine individual who, in his weaker moments, grapples with his desire to give up the fight. This well-written, realistic novel by the author of A Distant War (LJ 10/1/94) paints a vivid picture of the grayness and despair of the German occupation. Recommended for larger public libraries.
--Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Library edition edition (April 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0297848399
• ISBN-13: 978-0297848394
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,484,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Furst is widely recognized as the master of the historical spy novel. Now translated into seventeen languages, he is the bestselling author of Night Soldiers, Dark Star, The Polish Officer, The World at Night, Red Gold, Kingdom of Shadows, Blood of Victory, Dark Voyage, and The Foreign Correspondent Born in New York, he now lives in Paris and on Long Island.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, Authentic Description of Occupied Europe, September 25, 2004

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Polish Officer: A Novel (Paperback)

The reader new to Alan Furst may not immediately recognize that the plot is subordinate to the setting and character development. The Polish Officer, like his other novels, ends somewhat abruptly; the war continues unabated and the fate of his protagonist remains unresolved. Furst sees WWII as a large canvas. This novel, a detailed painting by Alan Furst, only covers a minute spot.

Poland is under coordinated attacks by Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. The story begins as Captain Alexander de Milja is assigned the task of transporting by train Poland's national gold reserves to a location out of reach of Hitler's forces. Not much later, despite fierce fighting by Polish forces, Poland is overwhelmed and de Milja joins the Polish resistance. The setting moves from Poland to Romania to France to the Ukraine as de Milja's situation becomes increasingly insecure. The Polish officer himself no longer has rank, nor an army, nor a country. He does not expect to survive.

Furst's novels excel in two regards: their historical settings are authentic while simultaneously the stories provide unexpected, even unique, perspectives on WWII. In this story we readers experience life from inside an occupied Poland, inside an intimidated Romania, within a surrendered France, and in a brutalized Ukraine. His plots are suspenseful and well-crafted, and yet I recall his stories more for their detailed settings. It is unlikely that I will forget Furst's description of occupied Europe.

The WWII historical novels of Alan Furst offer a richness and authenticity seldom encountered. I highly recommend The Polish Officer. It is among his finest works and is a great introduction to a remarkable author.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Espionage and intrigue in Occupied Europe, January 20, 2003

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Polish Officer: A Novel (Paperback)

Alan Furst has apparently been writing books of this genre for some years now. The plots all take place during the period just prior to World War II, or the during the war itself. Each of the characters is somewhat compromised, morally or otherwise. Here, the main character is Captain Alexander de Milja, a Polish army officer whose main duty, in peacetime, was as a cartographer and intelligence officer. Now that the war has started, he's helping defend Warsaw, but he's soon called away to escort a supply of gold and specie across the border into Romania. From there, his bosses in the military intelligence bureau wish him to spy on the Germans, first in Paris, later in other parts of France and elsewhere. He moves with ease from one theater of the war to another, repeatedly surviving when others around him are captured or killed. He has affairs, makes and loses friends, watches as others are betrayed by traitors, even executes said traitor himself on one occasion.

The one thing the book does extremely well is portray the lives of ordinary people during the war. The author seems to have a view of the mundane populace of an occupied country, and what they do or say or when they go on vacation. When they spy for de Milja, they do so for mundane reasons, for the most part, and their reactions when they get caught aren't heroic, for the most part, either. The novel is told in a series of grays (if they ever make a movie, it'll have to be black and white) with few if any colors in the landscape.

If I have a serious criticism, it's that there really isn't a plot. Instead, the story is basically a series of incidents involving a single individual, and if he'd structured it differently it could be a short story collection, plotwise. That's how connected the various plots are.

In spite of that, I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend the book.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Diamond Still in the Rough, September 16, 2002

By 

BP (Herndon, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Polish Officer: A Novel (Paperback)

Overall, The Polish Officer has more to offer than most in its genre. The atmosphere of the novel is really strong: dark, gritty, forboding. Furst's expert knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of WWII Europe is first-rate, and adds to the realism.

Beyond that, there were several problems that I found distracting. The main character, deMilja, always seems remote and detached from the reader. I never got a sense of his personality and found myself struggling to stay interested in him.

The book is not a thriller, per se, but there were moments that attempted to be tense. In the execution, however, the tension deflated way too early and I never found myself on the edge of my seat.

Alan Furst has enormous potential, and I'm told that his later novels are much better--that he comes into his own as a writer. One can see his potential in the Polish Officer, which would make a great film: that medium might more effectively capture the emotion, depth of character, and tension that is lacking in the novel.