Spy Games
Furst delivers next chapter of international intrigue
For
20 years now, Furst has been turning out his own series of novels filled with
international intrigue. Furst’s books are set in
Though
alike in bringing action to historical events, Sinclair’s and Furst’s series
differ in two major respects: Furst’s total page output is probably half of
Sinclair’s 7,000-plus, and he does not employ a continuing central character,
like Sinclair’s Lanny Budd in the “World’s End” series. Also, Furst has not won
a Pulitzer, as Sinclair did for Dragon’s
Teeth; however, to my mind, he is just as deserving.
Furst’s
novels move forward chronologically, though with lurches back and forth. His
previous entry, The Foreign Correspondent,
was set among Italian migrs in
Jean-Franois
Mercier, an army lieutenant colonel, is the military attach at the French
embassy. Mercier, a minor aristocrat of decidedly democratic leanings, is also
a minor spymaster and, on occasion, a spy.
Mercier,
a widower of three years with suave good looks, is like walking catnip to
unattached ladies—and sometimes even the attached ones. But Mercier finds a
permanent love interest in
Spies does not have the dangerous intrigue
of some of the earlier books; in this regard it is like its predecessor. Of
course, in neither novel has the war begun yet. Spies is mostly content to tantalize us with the mood and tone of
diplomacy, the dinners and social affairs where espionage is quietly enabled.
Furst’s
characters dwell in shadows—the shadows of what might be called “Furstland,”
the twilight realm of desperate people in hiding or on the run. It’s a model
that closely borders “Greeneland,” Graham Greene’s dim, dusty world of soured
morality and languorous betrayal. Particularly in Spies, we feel the fear of the kleinmensch,
the little man playing a dangerous game of spying.
German
engineer Edvard Uhl gets sucked into selling secrets to Mercier through his
lust for a Polish “countess,” who, unbeknownst to him, is a prostitute working
for Mercier. Uhl is there to show us what Mercier does as spymaster—and what
people do to themselves.
The
author skillfully weaves in political and social information about the times,
garnishing this with technical data about armaments and spy establishments as
well as with quotidian details like the activities of a railway stationmaster
or the sound of a steam-powered train as it traverses a bridge over a river.
Here
as elsewhere the typical Furstland atmosphere is indoors: dusk, that time of
soft blue shadows, a low light burning and a radio quietly playing a dance tune
in the next room. More often than not, it is gray and chilly outside, with
drizzling rain or spitting snow.
Spies demonstrates the missteps nations
took in proceeding inexorably toward a war they knew was coming yet whose
outlines they could not begin to imagine. France, especially, guided by the
calcified military thinking of Marshal Philippe Ptain, made the giant misstep
of clinging to a military strategy heavily based on the protection supposedly
offered by the Maginot Line.
Nothing
could convince them that such thinking was completely wrongheaded—not even the
information Mercier obtained through espionage that showed the Germans simply
planned to ignore the line and plow through the forests with tanks (which the
French insisted couldn’t be done). Ptain and his sycophants stubbornly refused
to accept a reality that did not fit their theory.
Funny,
where have we heard that song before?
anonymous
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