Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Alan Furst new novel Mission to Paris

This is a 1938 Panhard Dynamic, featured in alan furst's latest "night soldiers" book, Mission to Paris.  Unlike other historically based novels, Furst gets his history correct, and grasps the mood of the time.  i have read, and re read, his novels many times.  Other authors attempt to write novels combining history with fiction, like Newt Gingrich or Bill O'Reilly, but they fail because of (1) poor history, history manipulated for their own purposes or (2) they have a hidden agenda, packaging history for a market that has been researched for its political values.  thus, Lincoln's assassination takes on a new meaning for O'Reilly, namely terrorism, and Gingrich's novels portray Grant et alia as moralistic southern evangelicals fighting for our traditional values (and the Yankees, as it turned otu).  anyway, Furst's latest novel is great, not as great as the others, but a pleasure to read.  I prefer Alan Furst's espionage novels to health science textbooks anyday!

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