text: More than anything else Alan Furst recreates the atmosphere of the early days of World War II espionage. I.A. Serebin inhabits the urbane world of Russian emigres in the Europe of 1940-1941, mainly in Paris, but also in Roumania. Serebin is recruited into what seems to be the British secret service and seeks to interrupt the flow of Roumanian oil to the Nazi war machine. The whole operation reeks of amateurism - appropriate enough at that stage of the war - brainy, careful, daring, but amateur. With one exception, none of the players know completely what they are part of - which also leaves the reader at times groping for the story line. Still Furst's prose forms the characters into full-dimensional beings from Bogart's Casablanca or Graham Greene's Human Factor. 
  
  Highly recommended for readers with an interest in espionage or WW II
  