Dark Voyage: A Novel

Eric DeHaan is a forty-one-year-old man without a country. The year is 1941, the Germans have occupied Holland and that has effectively made DeHaan stateless. He is the captain of the "Noordendam" a tramp freighter owned by the Netherlands Hyperion Line and he is in free Tangers when he is approached by the owner of the line and some other mysterious people. He is inducted into the Royal Dutch Navy and given the rank commander and all of a sudden he's involved in the maritime espionage effort to counter the destruction of Allied merchant ships. A big job, considering the Germans have sunk over fifteen hundred ships in the last year and a half. His mission: disguise his ship with a neutral Spanish flag and deliver forty foot antenna masts and reception equipment for the construction of a coastal observation station on Swedish shores, land mines, tank shells and ammunition to British soldier on Crete, small things that will hopefully one day help add up to victory. As he goes about his duty he takes on some shadowy people like: Shtern, a young Jewish medical student as ship's doctor; Kolb, a cynical spy with questionable loyalties; Maria Bromen, a Russian journalist who wants to escape. Maria is quickly ensconced in DeHaan's small cabin, further complicating the captain's life. The ship lumbers on but the story, a thriller-mystery-historical hard to define book does not. Mr. Furst's fine writing and sense of history rockets right through to your soul, grabbing you by the gut, chilling your spine as you furiously rip through the pages, dying to see what comes next. You know DeHaan has to face the enemy eventually and you can't wait to get there and you're not disappointed when you finally do. In conclusion all I have left to say is, Wow, what a book!

Alan Furst's books are all set between 1935-1945. Although technically "spy" novels, Furst's novels might just as easily be considered historical fiction. Meticulous research combined with strong character development make each one of Furst's novels a great joy. Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets

You have to like this period of time. I don't mean "like" in the sense that it held the permissive excitement of the roaring twenties or the emotional promiscuity of the sixties, but 'like'as in fascinated. Like as in haunted. Like as in troubled. Additionally, it is the true Armageddon of our memory, of our time. Hitler and Stalin ARE the evil empire and should they be victorious, the world would be oh so different than it is now. Finally, I think if you read about that time, whether it's the novels of Deaver or Diehl or Woods on the one hand or the extraordinary Beevor's "Stalingrad" and "The Fall of Berlin," or Ambrose' "Easy Company" or Ryan's "D-Day," one gets the sense that for the Europeans, it wan't all black and white and no, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum didn't epitomize it. Nor Metro Goldwyn Mayer. So Alan Furst brings to the table a series of novels not in black and white but in gray. Where the characters are motivated by doing the right thing but, where is that damn right thing? And how much of this morality do I have to extrapolate? And are there situational ethics that no one's written about? And do my handlers really care if I win or not, or just that I put on "a bloody good show, mate." And what is winning, anyhow? Is it living? On some days, is it just surviving? Here Eric DeHaan, Ship's Captain, is seduced by Dutch Naval Intelligence. Well, "seduced" implies some volition on his part and clearly, if at all, there is little. His ship, the M/V Noordendam, will be used not so much for tramp steaming but to change it's name to the Santa Rosa, a South American steamer bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Noordendam, and carry men and material to be used against the Nazi effort. Which by now is most of Europe. Captain DeHaan needn't worry about this duplicity because the Santa Rosa, the real one, is stuck in port in South America with repair work taking at a minimum of several months. So right off the bat, you have to know both women are going to go to the same Oscar party wearing the same gown. At some point. DeHaan sails off to join a British convoy which as you recall from your history is the chickens strolling before the foxes, ripe, target rich plucking for the German Wolfpack. DeHaan's crew is very well described not as misfits but, let's use the current phrase, diverse. There's actually three stories here, the British convoy trip followed by two others. I didn't mind this. Although loosely related they all carried the common thread of DeHaan sucked along this vortex of espionage that he is uncertain if his handlers understand. DeHaan is as "everyman" as Captain John Miller in "Ryan" or Lieutenant Winters in "Easy Company." Every once in awhile he wants to ask 'how did I get here?' Bars on the waterfronts of Alexandria and Lisbon, love affairs with compromised women and friendships with on again off again friends. Like the old gameshow, Who do you Trust? Excellent work by Mr. Furst. Well worth the read. 5 Stars. La

Eric DeHaan is a forty-one-year-old man without a country. The year is 1941, the Germans have occupied Holland and that has effectively made DeHaan stateless. He is the captain of the "Noordendam" a tramp freighter owned by the Netherlands Hyperion Line and he is in free Tangers when he is approached by the owner of the line and some other mysterious people. He is inducted into the Royal Dutch Navy and given the rank commander and all of a sudden he's involved in the maritime espionage effort to counter the destruction of Allied merchant ships. A big job, considering the Germans have sunk over fifteen hundred ships in the last year and a half. His mission: disguise his ship with a neutral Spanish flag and deliver forty foot antenna masts and reception equipment for the construction of a coastal observation station on Swedish shores, land mines, tank shells and ammunition to British soldier on Crete, small things that will hopefully one day help add up to victory. As he goes about his duty he takes on some shadowy people like: Shtern, a young Jewish medical student as ship's doctor; Kolb, a cynical spy with questionable loyalties; Maria Bromen, a Russian journalist who wants to escape. Maria is quickly ensconced in DeHaan's small cabin, further complicating the captain's life. The ship lumbers on but the story, a thriller-mystery-historical hard to define book does not. Mr. Furst's fine writing and sense of history rockets right through to your soul, grabbing you by the gut, chilling your spine as you furiously rip through the pages, dying to see what comes next. You know DeHaan has to face the enemy eventually and you can't wait to get there and you're not disappointed when you finally do. In conclusion all I have left to say is, Wow, what book!

Alan Furst's literary domain is Europe -- mostly eastern and central Europe -- in those few years on either side of 1939, when Europe stood on the brink of World War Two and then plunged headlong into chaos. What is most enticing about Furst's works is that he creates such a convincing atmosphere that breathes with the life of that place and time. I am one of those readers who habitually translate the printed page into mental picture, and in the case of Furst's novels I find the movie playing in my mind to be appropriately in cinematic black and white. I half expect Peter Lorre to be lurking in a dark doorway or Sidney Greenstreet to be behind that beaded curtain. Alan Furst's new book, "Dark Voyage", is from the familiar period and area -- 1941 Europe -- but there is something of a departure this time around in that the primary setting is a ship, the Dutch tramp steamer Noordendam under the command of Eric DeHaan, ship and captain pressed into the service of the Naval Intelligence arm of the Dutch Government in exile, clandestinely transporting under false colors people and material to wherever orders require. The cast of characters, as always, is a mixture of diverse and uncertain nationalities, appropriate in an era when nationalities themselves were shifting at the whim of events. I found "Dark Voyage" to be a compelling, if episodic, reading experience as the weary Dutch freighter and her weary crew go about the dark business of a shadow war. Furst's book are not a series, although a minor character in one book may turn up as the central figure in another, and can generally be read without any particular order. And for those of you who are familiar with Furst's novels, yes, Table Fourteen at the Brasserie Heininger in Paris does make its customary appearance.