[PSO]⋙ Download Gratis Red Gold Alan Furst 9780753818312 Books

Red Gold Alan Furst 9780753818312 Books

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Red Gold Alan Furst 9780753818312 Books

It's hard to give a mediocre review to an Alan Furst book; his first 3 books were 5+ stars, off-the-charts great reading. But somewhere along the line, he seems to have gotten a little fatigued. His 4th book was a shorter volume, told in a bit of a different style, and just didn't hold my attention as well as the first 3 books. Not to mention, I hated the ending of the 4th book. To my great surprise, the story of the 4th book continued in the 5th book: the same characters, picked up right where the 4th book ended. Why would Furst do this? It bears a very strong resemblance to the practice of many movie producers, who take a popular book and turn it into TWO movies, a Part 1 and Part 2, solely to maximize profits. While I have no idea if this is what Furst's intentions were, I do know that the 4th book was 324 pages and this book was a scant 272 pages. His first book, the fantastic Night Soldiers, was 516 pages of riveting reading. Couldn't he have combined books 4 and 5 for a single, epic 596 page volume? I wish he had.
One star deduction for this.

As for the writing itself, this book had the feel of a screenplay to me. Instead of sticking with the main character for an entire chapter, Furst decided to switch scenes abruptly many times within a chapter. And there frequently was no pause between scenes, no double space or line of asterisks, nothing. You finished one paragraph with one character in a specific place, and the next paragraph is describing a different character in a different place. I had to read halfway into the paragraph before I realized it was a different scene. This never happened in the first three books, and to be honest, I don't like this style. Also making it feel like a screenplay was the frequency of the main character "almost" getting caught by the Gestapo, the French Police, or a rival faction. It felt like I was watching a TV show and the character is in jeopardy, so we go to commercial. Then, after the commercial, it turns out that it was a false alarm, or he talks his way out of it, or escapes in some other way. Just too many of those scenes, placed at appropriate intervals. Another star deducted for this. Oh, and finally: I hated the ending of this book as much as the 4th book.

I hope that Furst went back to the style from the first 3 books after this, but I'll have to read book 6 and find out....


Tags : Red Gold [Alan Furst] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Set in the underworld of Paris in 1941. Reluctant spy Jean Casson returns to occupied Paris under a new identity. He is wanted by the Gestapo therefore must stay away from the civilised circles he knew as a film producer and learn to survive in the shadowy backstreets and cheap hotels of Pigalle. Yet as the war drags on,Alan Furst,Red Gold,Orion Pub Co,0753818310,General & Literary Fiction,Fiction

Red Gold Alan Furst 9780753818312 Books Reviews

I've read two other Furst Novels and enjoy them thoroughly. The one I recall most clearly, "Night Soldiers", had some minor errors about tanks used in the Spanish Civil War. It was, nevertheless, a compelling read.

It's disappointing if an author of historical fiction doesn't get all the details right but it doesn't destroy the work for me as it did for at least one curmudgeon. I could not put this book down, found it to be a real page turner. When I did put it down, before going to sleep, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep thinking of the potential ramifications of one of the plot twists. He's definitely now one of my favorite authors. His characters are well, and individually, drawn; his plots realistically complicated, given the subject matter; and the historical and geographical backgrounds fascinating.
In this book we learn in nth degree daily detail that it is no fun even in Paris when it is exceptionally cold and you have no food, money, job or coat, the Gestapo is everywhere and all the babes are sleeping are sleeping with them. It is so bad you have to go rack with your ex-wife while her husband is in Italy sourcing Alfa Romeos for his car dealership. How there is a demand for them in war ravaged France is not explained. Anyway, the book is about Vichy French, bitchy French (DeGaulle is a load), the British and various subspecies of Communists (the Party guys don't like commies who are really just anarchists, etc) all trying to bury their snits momentarily and go after Germans, whilst avoiding ever-present collaborationists. The main plotline involves gun smuggling but the author warns us through a character that we will not be told what they will used for, if at all. Sure enough, he is right. Even if there is no comprehensible plot, Furst has always been good at creating the atmospherics. This time, not so much.
Alan Furst homes in on the French Resistance in Red Gold, the fifth of the 13 novels in his “Night Soldiers” series that have been appearing regularly since 1988. His mastery of the moods and the political environment in Europe before and during the Second World War is unexcelled, and the flawed, believable characters he writes about cause him to be regularly compared to Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, who were regarded as the masters of spy fiction decades before him.

Red Gold features a former film producer named Jean Casson who finds himself forced to become involved in espionage and sabotage in France early in World War II. In telling the story, Furst spotlights the tension and distrust among the several factions involved in the Resistance, from the loyal army officers on the staff of the puppet Petain to the Gaullist forces headquartered in London and the well-organized Communist underground. Casson’s role as liaison among the various factions gives him a unique vantage point on the complex relationships among these contending groups, each of them positioning itself for what was shaping up as a civil war that would follow the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Furst’s novels have a formulaic element, in that every one features a reluctant hero — Casson fits that bill to a T — as well as a love story. However, there’s nothing formulaic about either the circumstances or the locales Furst chooses, shifting from Eastern Europe to Spain to France and Greece and back. Even minor characters leap off the page, fully formed. As a guide to the reality of life as it was experienced by Europeans during World War II, there’s no one better than Alan Furst.

If you’re looking for blockbuster spy fiction in the tradition of Ian Fleming, with superhero agents and larger-than-life master criminals, you won’t find Alan Furst’s work to be satisfying. However, if you crave realistic stories and credible characters based on thorough historical research, you’ll find it difficult to put down any of his novels.
It's hard to give a mediocre review to an Alan Furst book; his first 3 books were 5+ stars, off-the-charts great reading. But somewhere along the line, he seems to have gotten a little fatigued. His 4th book was a shorter volume, told in a bit of a different style, and just didn't hold my attention as well as the first 3 books. Not to mention, I hated the ending of the 4th book. To my great surprise, the story of the 4th book continued in the 5th book the same characters, picked up right where the 4th book ended. Why would Furst do this? It bears a very strong resemblance to the practice of many movie producers, who take a popular book and turn it into TWO movies, a Part 1 and Part 2, solely to maximize profits. While I have no idea if this is what Furst's intentions were, I do know that the 4th book was 324 pages and this book was a scant 272 pages. His first book, the fantastic Night Soldiers, was 516 pages of riveting reading. Couldn't he have combined books 4 and 5 for a single, epic 596 page volume? I wish he had.
One star deduction for this.

As for the writing itself, this book had the feel of a screenplay to me. Instead of sticking with the main character for an entire chapter, Furst decided to switch scenes abruptly many times within a chapter. And there frequently was no pause between scenes, no double space or line of asterisks, nothing. You finished one paragraph with one character in a specific place, and the next paragraph is describing a different character in a different place. I had to read halfway into the paragraph before I realized it was a different scene. This never happened in the first three books, and to be honest, I don't like this style. Also making it feel like a screenplay was the frequency of the main character "almost" getting caught by the Gestapo, the French Police, or a rival faction. It felt like I was watching a TV show and the character is in jeopardy, so we go to commercial. Then, after the commercial, it turns out that it was a false alarm, or he talks his way out of it, or escapes in some other way. Just too many of those scenes, placed at appropriate intervals. Another star deducted for this. Oh, and finally I hated the ending of this book as much as the 4th book.

I hope that Furst went back to the style from the first 3 books after this, but I'll have to read book 6 and find out....