Kingdom of Shadows
by Alan Furst
Random House

Alan Furst is, quite literally, the heir to the throne of the spy novel genre. Ludlum died last week. Clancy is now all about guns and bombs. Le Carre and Forsyth are on the way out — in any case, neither has ever been able to get over the fall of Communism and the subsequent disappearance of their source of plot material.

Furst, the author of "Kingdom of Shadows" as well as five other novels, never had that problem. For him, the grist for the spy-thriller mill is not in the Cold War, but in the period between 1933, the year of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, and 1939, the beginning of World War II. During these brief six years, international intrigue was taken to a new level, and Furst has, time and again, done a superb job of turning an historically exciting time into a tight, suspenseful novel.

"Kingdom of Shadows" is typical of his previous novels. It centers around Morath, a lesser Hungarian noble who manages an ad agency in Paris but secretly runs freelance secret missions for his conspiring uncle, Count Polanyi. These usually include rescuing vulnerable anti-fascists from Eastern Europe, or funneling money to pro-Hungarian movements.

"Kingdom of Shadows" is not the sort of thing you would ever call a literary endeavor; it is, in the end, a spy thriller through and through. It is, to be sure, a lot better than the average spy thriller, and it's a shame that Furst so easily gets pigeonholed into the airport-bookrack crowd. But he still has yet to escape the conventions of his lesser compatriots — "Kingdom of Shadows" is bogged down by needless sex and pedantic dialogue. For example, Morath, having a drink with Polanyi, is given the following lesson in current events:

It felt like 1914 — events overtaking politicians. What happened was this: Hitler moved ten divisions to the Czech border. At night. But they caught him at it. The Czechs mobilized — unlike the Austrians, who just sat there and waited for it to happen — and the French and British diplomats in Berlin went wild. This means war! In the end, he backed down.

As if a man as plugged in to the European political scene needs background like this. Furst's not-so-implicit plan is to give us a history lesson. Which is good, up to a point, but a little bit goes a long way. Just because it's an historical novel does not mean it has to be weighed down with history, particularly overly pedantic history such as this.

Nevertheless, "Kingdom of Shadows" is an engaging read. What Furst lacks in dialogue, he makes up for in description — few American authors are able to conjure up the mixture of desperation and despair that cloaked Europe in the years leading up to the war. Furst is able not only to describe it, but to infuse it everywhere in his writing — in his descriptions of streets, his evocations of memories, his careful rounding out of the war-emigres surrounding Morath in Paris.

And, at just over 230 pages, "Kingdom of Shadows" is just the right length. It succeeds, in the end, less as a spy thriller and more as an impressionist work of art, a brief, fleeting description of what it was like to live on the eve of destruction.

— Clay Risen (clay@flakmag.com)