Book Review
"Dark Voyage": Impending doom and unswerving duty

By Mary Ann Gwinn
Seattle Times book editor

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Other links Search event listings

Thus began my long and fruitful acquaintance with Furst, who lived here for a time, moved to Europe and started writing spy novels, mining the very dark time between the two World Wars, going deep into wild places like interwar Romania to get the detail right on his very authentic characters and plots.

"Dark Voyage," Furst's latest, has all the elements of his best books: a worldly but ultimately incorruptible main character; an electric atmosphere of threat; and a sensuous love affair, one that takes place in the rusty nether reaches of a tramp freighter.

"Dark Voyage" by Alan Furst Random House, 256 pp., $24.95

Furst has gone to sea in "Dark Voyage." Eric Mathias DeHaan, captain of the Dutch freighter Noordendam, is a man without a country: The Netherlands have been overrun by the Germans. The intelligence arm of the Dutch government in exile in London teams up with the British, and DeHaan and the Noordendam are pressed into service for the surreptitious smuggling of some commandos, some serious explosives and some very high-stakes electronic gear.

Like Furst's books set in Paris during this period, there is a palpable sense of doom that ratchets up the suspense. At this point in history the gods had turned out the lights. On the occasion of his recruitment, "De Haan headed for the Bab el Marsa and the port. Le goût hollandaise, he thought. Drunk and lonely and sent off to die at sea. But he found that thought offensive and made himself take it back. In the North Atlantic, and everywhere in Europe, all sorts of people had their lives in their hands that night but there was always room for one more, and as to who would see the end of war and who wouldn't, that was up to the stars." Refugees crowd the docks, begging for just one more spot on the ship; De Haan can't help them — no one can.

"Dark Voyage" is one of Furst's best books. De Haan carries on his sturdy shoulders a wry authority, an understated sex appeal and a sense of humor that Furst describes as "that Dutch set of the mouth which found the world a far more eccentric, and finally amusing, place than its German versions to the east." His cast of subordinate characters on the ship is a European polyglot feast. I'm no sailor, but he seems to have researched every last detail of a tramp freighter of that period and worked it seamlessly into the narrative.

Furst is described by his publisher as "master of the historical spy novel" and has received an enviable push in recent years (I remember the days when you had to search through the mass-market paperbacks section to find him. There is some justice in the publishing world). He's not quite in the category of Le Carré — unlike that talented gentleman, he never was a spy and hasn't personally penetrated the profession's dark heart.

He's something else; a virtuoso craftsman who makes you want to be there in his books, whether it's occupied Paris or the steel-cold reaches of the North Sea. He uses the structure of the spy novel to convey the endurance of duty and honor, seen through the lens of a simpler but somehow more vibrant time and place. I can't wait to see where he takes us next.

Mary Ann Gwinn: 206-464-2357 or mgwinn@ seattletimes.com. She has been the Seattle Times book editor since 1998.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More books headlines...