- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; New edition edition (12 Aug 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0297849123
- ISBN-13: 978-0297849124
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 157,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Dark Voyage
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Competitors despair. Alan Furst's mastery of the espionage novel put him beyond any would-be rival......No one does it better than Furst and DARK VOYAGE is about as good as it gets. First class in every department.' (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW )
'the eccentric wanderers with their strange histories, the shadowy life in the wings of the theatre are pure Casablanca......... tension, excitement and the cat and mouse of naval warfare are Furst's primary business.' (David Smith THE OBSERVER )
'Alan Furst writes brilliantly about wartime Europe.' (THE ECONOMIST )
'a gripping plot and a galaxy of well-drawn characters.' (David Robson THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
'With Furst at his best, as with the best of John le Carre, the reader is gripped by a tale which is at bottom serious rather than simply diverting.' (Sean O'Brien TLS )
The streamlined clarity with which Dark Voyage pulls all this together is extraordinary.... Dark Voyage is vintage cinema already.' (Janet Maslin THE SCOTSMAN )
'Furst seems to have the maritime lingo down pat, and all the time he's slipping the reader a detailed history lesson about this aspect of the war.....best of all is the sly humour that dominates every page.' (Omer Ali TIME OUT )
'as the novel nears its violent climax in the Baltic, there is a lot of satisfying business below-decks with over worked boilers, muffled speaking tubes, oily engine hands wielding well-aimed carbines.' (Brian Dillon SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )
'Buy it and then go looking for Furst's other wonderful thrillers.' (Vincent Banville CORK EXAMINER )
'if you haven't read him yet, DARK VOYAGE, is the place to start.' (MJ Harrison THE GUARDIAN )
'I always feel a thrill of anticipation when a new Alan Furst novel arrives and DARK VOYAGE, his eighth, is as good as the other seven, which is saying a lot.' (Vincent Banville THE IRISH TIMES )
'the eccentric wanderers with their strange histories, the shadowy life in the wings of the theatre are pure Casablanca......... tension, excitement and the cat and mouse of naval warfare are Furst's primary business.' (David Smith THE OBSERVER )
'Alan Furst writes brilliantly about wartime Europe.' (THE ECONOMIST )
'a gripping plot and a galaxy of well-drawn characters.' (David Robson THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
'With Furst at his best, as with the best of John le Carre, the reader is gripped by a tale which is at bottom serious rather than simply diverting.' (Sean O'Brien TLS )
The streamlined clarity with which Dark Voyage pulls all this together is extraordinary.... Dark Voyage is vintage cinema already.' (Janet Maslin THE SCOTSMAN )
'Furst seems to have the maritime lingo down pat, and all the time he's slipping the reader a detailed history lesson about this aspect of the war.....best of all is the sly humour that dominates every page.' (Omer Ali TIME OUT )
'as the novel nears its violent climax in the Baltic, there is a lot of satisfying business below-decks with over worked boilers, muffled speaking tubes, oily engine hands wielding well-aimed carbines.' (Brian Dillon SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY )
'Buy it and then go looking for Furst's other wonderful thrillers.' (Vincent Banville CORK EXAMINER )
'if you haven't read him yet, DARK VOYAGE, is the place to start.' (MJ Harrison THE GUARDIAN )
'I always feel a thrill of anticipation when a new Alan Furst novel arrives and DARK VOYAGE, his eighth, is as good as the other seven, which is saying a lot.' (Vincent Banville THE IRISH TIMES )
David Robson, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'a gripping plot and a galazy of well-drawn characters.'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
In the port of Tangier, on the last day of April, 1941, the fall of the Mediterranean evening was, as always, subtle and slow. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the port of Tangier, on the last day of April, 1941, the fall of the Mediterranean evening was, as always, subtle and slow. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Furst doesn't write thrillers in the conventional use of the term. He writes stories about people coping wih living in extraordinary circumstances -- no plans or grand schemes just the buffetings of Fate which require making constant adjustments and compromises. So the stories, like episodes in life, sometimes have a distinct beginning and an end but often just peter out without any fixed resolution. Either you like that or perhaps you find his books unsatisfying since you might think the stories get nowhere. I like it.
Dark Voyage is a novel in this mould with a strong narrative but a wandering story. It has echoes of Greene and Conrad as another reviewer has suggested and a similarly poignant ending like many of Greene's stories.
And like many of Greene's "entertainments" it is to be viewed on its merits -- it does not set out to self-importantly weigh the human condition. It does seek to entertain -- and it succeeds in doing that very well. Intelligent writing that does not stoop to sensation or artifices of plot to achieve its effect .
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I want so much to enjoy Furst's novels. The atmosphere is there, the mysterious characters are there, but the plot is almost non-existent. There's virtually no referring back: an affair DeHaan once had in Paris is just that, an afffair he once had; skills he has picked up in a long life in the merchant navy are rarely mentioned, simply assumed; and almost all of the events (a lorry in the hold catches fire - was it an accident or not?) are so inconsequential as to have no bearing on the story whatsoever. Is this what is called a linear plot? I don't know, but it is surely the shortest distance between two points. As I say, the writing is a pleasure to read, but where are the skeletons in the closet? Where are the characters of dubious origin? And where is the German anti-espionage effort? There is more danger from passing Stukas than from the men in leather raincoats. Sady insubstantial.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
dark voyage
This is a very ordinary book. Perfectly readable, but not really engaging. I found it almost a chore to bother to get to the end. Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2009 by Peter
Not up to his usual standard
I've been a big fan of the WWII Alan Furst novels. This however is a pretty poor effort, in comparison with it's predecessors. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2007 by Mr. Stephen Edwards
Encore, encore.
Once more Mr Furst gives a little jewel to love. Gritty, yet romantic. Real, yet absurd. Life in paper and ink. Looking forward to his next.
Published on 11 Dec 2004 by D. Bartlett
Disappointment
This is a disappointing book which perhaps should never have been written. An old-fashioned editor would have pruned the first 100 pages into 5 or 6. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2004 by Richard E. Andrews
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
