In the autumn of 1940, Russian émigré journalist I. A. Serebin is recruited in Istanbul by an agent of the British secret services for a clandestine operation to stop German importation of Romanian oil—a last desperate attempt to block Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Serebin’s race against time begins in Bucharest and leads him to Paris, the Black Sea, Beirut, and, finally, Belgrade; his task is to attack the oil barges that fuel German tanks and airplanes. Blood of Victory is a novel with the heart-pounding suspense, extraordinary historical accuracy, and narrative immediacy we have come to expect from Alan Furst.
I.A. Serebin, an émigré writer who heads the International Russian Union and edits its literary magazine, is no stranger to war: "Two gangsters, one neighborhood, they fight," he comments at a dinner party on a yacht in the Istanbul harbor in the autumn of 1940. Istanbul, to which Serebin has come to say good-bye to a dying friend, is a haven for spies, arms dealers, diplomats, and intrigue. Like most of the author's protagonists, Serebin is a romantic, a reluctant hero who tries to believe that war will not really change anything: "Hold fast to life as it should be, the daily ritual, work, love, and then it will be" is his credo. After Paris falls to the Germans, he realizes that is impossible. When a French diplomat's wife, whom he met and bedded on the freighter that brought him to Turkey, puts him in touch with a Hungarian spy working with the British Secret Service, Serebin allows himself to be recruited for a mission to disrupt the flow of oil from Romania's Ploesti fields to German factories--something that has been tried by the British before, without success. Alan Furst, a master stylist whose novels are peopled with characters who remain in the reader's mind long after the last page is turned, evokes Istanbul's smoky, spicy, shadowy atmosphere with the same authenticity he brings to the settings of all his thrillers, most notably Paris. No one is better at describing both place and players in the period just before and during World War II; widely hailed as the successor to Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, Furst proves in his gripping, compulsively readable seventh novel what a contender he is for that title. --Jane Adams

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the best Furst by a long shot
Comment: I'm surprised that the Publishers Weekly review praises Blood of Victory for a supposedly more linear plot than Kingdom of Shadows. While no one is better than Furst at immersing the reader in a time and place, the story line really meanders in this novel. It's more like a desultory trip in a time machine. When things start happening about four-fifths of the way through the book, Furst shows his usual spare mastery of the action. But boy, it took a long time to get there.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty Thin Stuff
Comment: I really wanted to like this book and this writer. After all he is prolific, with many more books in the same vein. But, alas, it was not to be. This is pretty thin gruel. Yes it is heavily atmospheric, but it is also superficial, contrived and predictible. Hungarian counts, delicate, seductive, married French women with understanding husbands; exotic locations such as Istanbul and Odessa; lots of journeys by train and freighter. It all merges together into one dark, over-written rainy night. I longed for the sun to rise and put an end to it all. I closed the book for good around page 100 because I could not get myself to care about what might happen next.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very atmospheric, Furst repeats his winning formula
Comment: The protagonist of this novel, an emigre Russian writer A. A. Serebin, finds himself in Istanbul at the beginning of this fine suspense novel. War is raging through Europe, the Nazis have occupied Paris and our hero faces the usual choice that Furst always places before his characters -- to get involved in fighting the evil or not to get involved.
Of course the answer is clear. Serebin contacts British intelligence and soon finds himself trying to reactivate an old spy network in Bucharest, where fascist-anti-Semitic militias are fighting for control against the Nazi-backed forces of Antonescu, himself an ultra-nationalist and no angel. Having spent nine months in Bucharest, I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the city in this horrible period of its history.
Serebin becomes involved in a plot to sink barges loaded with metal in an especially shallow stretch of the Danube River to block exports of crucial Romanian oil to Germany.
I won't spoil things for readers by divulging what happens but I actually found the climax here a little disappointment. Furst has a way of jumping through crucial pieces of action with phrases like -- "it was an uncomfortable night."
My other criticism is that once you've read one Furst, you've kind of read them all. The characters and plots are all remarkably similar. Yes, Furst is a master of atmosphere and his research is formidable but I'd like to see him stretch himself a little in future books.
Having said that, still a great few hours of top-class entertainment and fascinating history.
For more on me and my book The Nazi Hunter: A Novelgo to www.alanelsner.com.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Into Romania
Comment: Another of Furst's reluctant spy novels. Serebin has enough of the history of inter-war Europe wrapped up in him to ensure that he has already seen most of what is to come, but continues to strive forward. Again, the motivation is not ideology, but a personal sense of right and wrong.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Blood of Victory
Comment: I don't read these books, but my dad sure seemed excited. He is a Tom Clancy fan and has read all of his books. This author had good reviews so I gave him a shot

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