by Alan Furst
Part of Night Soldiers, book 14
First published 2016
Paris lies under German occupation in 1941. The city stays dark at night, its streetlamps painted blue and windows shuttered by Nazi decree. Mathieu operates a Resistance cell dedicated to helping downed British airmen escape back to England. His network includes Lisette, a seventeen-year-old student who carries messages, Max de Lyon, who runs a nightclub after dealing arms, Chantal, a woman of breeding and nerve, Daniel, a Jewish teacher driven by vengeance, Joëlle, who becomes Mathieu's lover, and Annemarie, an aristocrat determined to fight for France. They work through farmhouses, barns, and churches across the countryside, moving carefully around collaborators and informers. The German military police increase their surveillance as the cell's activities grow bolder. Then the Reich sends a new threat specifically to eliminate Mathieu's group. The team must navigate blackmailers, spies, and betrayal while continuing their dangerous missions. Each operation risks exposure and death, but these ordinary citizens refuse to surrender their country without a fight.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, military-fiction, action, world-war-ii, espionage
Vibes: atmospheric, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, ordinary-people-in-extraordinary-circumstances
Setting: England, France, Germany, Paris
Period: 1941
234 pages · Hardcover · Random House