Under Occupation

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What to expect

'IN THE WORLD OF THE ESPIONAGE THRILLER, ALAN FURST IS IN A CLASS OF HIS OWN' William Boyd

'FURST'S ABILITY TO RECREATE THE TERRORS OF ESPIONAGE IS MATCHLESS' Robert Harris

Occupied Paris in 1942, a dark, treacherous city now ruled by the German security services, where French resistance networks are working secretly to defeat Hitler.

Just before he dies, a man being chased by the Gestapo hands off to Paul Ricard a strange looking drawing. It looks like a part for a military weapon; Ricard realizes it must be an important document smuggled out of Germany to aid the resistance.

As Ricard is drawn deeper and deeper into the French resistance network, his increasingly dangerous assignments lead him to travel to Germany, along the underground safe houses of the resistance - all the way to the mysterious and beautiful Leila, a professional spy.

Critics Review

'If any thriller writer has absolutely nailed a time and place in which to set his fiction, in this case France and Eastern Europe at the beginning of World War II, it is the American master of historical spy-fi Alan Furst ... Alan Furst is a master of his chosen material and his writing is cool, calm and very collected and proves, yet again, that he is one of the truly great writers of espionage fiction.
Shots Magazine
Furst's novels are often seen as historical thrillers because they are set in WWII but there is no need to look to the sub-set for reputation, he stands with the best in the espionage genre.
NB Magazine
Furst's prose is almost understated but he conjures up a universe. Wartime Paris is lovingly depicted: the smell of wet leaves, the taste of chicory coffee, the flics in their rain capes, a loaded glance across a cafe. Most of all, the sense of menace
Financial Times
A gripping story of a novelist handed a top-secret blueprint by a dying man and tasked with getting it into the hands of the French resistance while hounded by the Gestapo . . . the twists and intrigue keep coming
Observer
As ever, Furst vividly evokes a sense of time and place
Mail on Sunday
PRAISE FOR ALAN FURST, THE MASTER OF THE HISTORICAL ESPIONAGE NOVEL

'Furst's ability to recreate the terrors of espionage is matchless' Robert Harris

'Furst is an addiction' The Times

'If you are a John le Carre' fan, this is definitely a novel for you' James Patterson on Mission to Paris

'Furst never stops astounding me' Tom Hanks

'America's preeminent spy novelist' New York Times

'How I envy anybody who has not yet discovered Furst's writing' Telegraph

'Furst's books are like Chopin's nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell' Los Angeles Times

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