Glenn's Reading Notes: Kingdom of Shadows

I've spent most of my reading time today on Kingdom of Shadows, a spy novel set in 1938 and 1939. The author, Alan Furst, does a very nice job of evoking the war fever of 1938, and the way in which the British avoided war by sacrificing the Czechs to Hitler.

As always, the choice of viewpoint character is critical, and Furst's protagonist is Nicholas Morath, a Hungarian aristocrat living in Paris and carrying a Hungarian diplomatic passport. I would have to go back and re-read Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories, but I think that Furst manages some of the same atmosphere. This is a rather episodic novel, in which each of the four sections could almost stand on its own, but there is a definite trend of increasing tension through the entire work.

One of the keys here is that Hungary was going to enter the war as an ally of Germany, so that Morath is viewed in France as a potential enemy alien, when he detests Hitler and opposes the fascist Arrow Cross group in Hungary. I've been enjoying this book, and I'm going to be sorry to see it end. But that won't stop me from finishing it tonight, if I can just stay awake.