by Alan Furst
Part of Night Soldiers, book 11
First published 2010
Costa Zannis heads the political cases division of Salonika police in 1940 as war closes in on northern Greece. The Greek army has just pushed Mussolini's forces back into Albania, delivering the first defeat to Axis powers. But Hitler will not allow this defiance to stand. Invasion looms over the ancient Macedonian port city with its dark alleys, Turkish mansions, and bustling wharves. Spies converge from every direction. A British travel writer appears. A Bulgarian undertaker moves through the shadows. German secret service operatives watch and wait. Turkish legation members play their own games. Zannis must navigate them all while secretly organizing an underground railroad from Berlin through Salonika to safety in Turkey. German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian criminals protect the route. The Gestapo hunts it relentlessly. As political tension mounts, the city's nightlife intensifies. Zannis becomes involved with three women: a British expatriate running a ballet academy, a figure from Salonika's underworld, and the wife of a shipping magnate. Each relationship pulls him deeper into the web of wartime survival and resistance that will define his choices when the invasion finally comes.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, espionage, political-thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Salonika, Greece, Balkans, Turkey, Albania
Period: 1940
268 pages · Hardcover · Random House