New Newsletter

[brm_3k]

Do you have anything you might like to see in the next issue?

The review of "The Great Siege" kind of surprised me. It truly is a great read -- the last of the terrible steel wyrms weaving their lethal doppelhander arts against the fanatical Ottoman hordes in a grim swan song -- but about as out of print as a book can get. I thought that I might be able to out-obscure it with Pleivier's "Stalingrad," but no way. Amazon has a grand total of 2 copies of "Siege," dozens of "Stalingrad."

Next newsletter how about running my generic review of the collected novels of Alan Furst?:

[Night/Dark/Red/Shadow] [Soldiers/Officer/Victory/Gold] [of Shadows/of Victory/at Night] details the exploits of a [minor European nation or ethnic group]-born protagonist who probably has really high cheekbones. As the story begins in [1936/37/38/39], our hero's sympathy for the socialist ideal has been shattered by the brutal realities of the Stalinist regime. Set into flight by [Nazi/Soviet] sympathizers, he makes his way to Paris [before/after] becoming involved in the Allied [intelligence/partisan] effort in the most perilous possible way, as a dubious asset who constantly has to wonder when, not if, his luck will run out. As a Parisian of the constantly-looking-over-his-shoulder sort, our hero beds [1/2/3/4/5] beautiful women before eventually making his way to the Brasserie Heininger, where we have to read about that damn bullet hole in the mirror yet again. In the meantime, the author does a devilish job of describing the terror and hardship of [espionage/partisan warfare] during the early years of WWII. Additionally, the period detail is seamlessly woven into the narrative, the slightly puckish insight into human nature should bring a wry smile to the reader, and the author's mastery of his art will make it impossible to put this book down, even though you've read this story [1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8] times before ...

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Good review, but you missed Polish from the title options. The Polish Officer is a good book, as you say the period detail is something I can only read and envy.

You could do a similar review for Michael Dibdin's novels featuring Zen, but they are still a good read

Alex