The Foreign Correspondent

By: Alan Furst

Narrated by: Alfred Molina

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

From Alan Furst, best-selling author of Blood of Victory and Dark Voyage, comes a thrilling saga of everyday people forced by their hearts' passion to fight in the war against tyranny.

Paris, a winter night in 1938: a murder/suicide at a discreet lovers' hotel. But this is no romantic tragedy, it is the work of the OVRA, Mussolini's fascist secret police, and is meant to eliminate the editor of Liberazione, a clandestine emigre newspaper. Carlo Weisz, a foreign correspondent with the Reuters bureau, becomes the new editor.

Weisz is, at that moment, in Spain, reporting on the last campaign of the Spanish civil war. But as soon as he returns to Paris, he is pursued by the French Surete, by agents of the OVRA, and by officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the desperate politics of Europe on the edge of war, a foreign correspondent is a pawn, worth surveillance or blackmail or murder.

The story of a secret war fought in elegant hotel bars and first-class railway cars, in the mountains of Spain and the back streets of Berlin, The Foreign Correspondent is Alan Furst at his absolute best, taut and powerful, enigmatic and romantic, with sharp, seductive writing that takes listeners through darkness and intrigue to a spectacular denouement.

©2006 Alan Furst (P)2006 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. Audioworks is an imprint of Simon and Schuster Audio Division, Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Thriller/Suspense, 2007

"Furst...excels at characterization....[He] presents a potent portrait of Europe on the eve of WWII." (Publishers Weekly)
"Furst serves another delicious helping of Paris suspended in a brief moment of time." (Booklist)

Not Overdone

I read so many books that go on and on and on until I'm actually glad they are finally finished, but The Foreign Correspondent actually left me wanting more. The story also is about an aspect of WWII about which I had no real prior familiarity with--Italy and Italian resistance. The characters are vivid, the environs palpable. The narration was gorgeous and I'm sure I will listen to this book again just for that. And did I mention, I want more!

Not Furst’s First

Alan Furst has masterful insight into Europe leading up to WW II.
His best novel, World at Night, really brings the reader close to the mood of the times. Cafe scenes, the street vendors, manipulators, heroes and bad guys.

Jean Claude Cassens, the hero, is a perfect Frenchman, caught up in all the manipulations of the bad guys. The sex scenes are lush, funny and tragic, just like sex often is.

priceless.

wonderful story with people so real you'll miss them once it's all over. and of course there's the narrator who make it all come life

intrigue

A shortish and a good listen book with a little romance. I loved the spy genre rather than battlefield.

Warning: abridged!

The story was thin and not a typical Furst novel. I realized in the closing credits it was an abridged version, which explains it. The story moves too quickly and is missing its soulfulness. Why, oh why, would this be abridged? What a shame. On the other hand, the performance was superb and sublime and it is unfortunate that there were not several more hours of performance from Molina for us to enjoy. Again, who thought an abridged version was a good idea for this book, this author, this narrator?

Repeat listening

I love the way this was done by the author and narrator so much I’ve listened to it more than 20 times in just a few years

Did I miss something?

I think the abridgement of this book left something to be desired. I had to keep checking my ipod to make sure that I didn't somehow accidentally fast forward because so much seemed to be cut out that I would get lost and the plot would occur unnaturally fast.

I also didn't think the plot was engaging. I never cared about the characters or what they did. I never felt suspense, which you need for a book like this and the ending didn't wrap up any of the ends of the plot, but rather just left them hanging. What I thought this book was about, the war resistance, ended up just being background. In the beginning this felt like it was going to be an action book, but ended like a romance.

an outline?

I didn't know I was getting an abridged book, so maybe I expected too much. But it was as if it was only the outline of a story.