Alan Furst, Blood of Victory

I had been unable to finish the last Alan Furst novel I tried to read.  It was too much seafaring, too boaty -- and those of you who recall my wedding will remember that I was very pleased with its setting at the Larchmont Yacht Club -- with the sole caveat that the lovely view was marred by all those stupid boats (I pray the boaty contingent of Berridges will not take offense).

At any rate, I picked up Furst's Blood of Victory at the Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library sale for two bucks a few weeks back, and it has proven to be a good use of money.  This takes us back to dry land, with Furst's typical rag-tag group of Eastern and Western European resistance/intelligence agents toing and froing about Europe, trying to quietly stop the Nazis or their precursors or something.

Once again, our hero shacks up with a lady of shared interest, and they do the nasty in some cold rooms and other makeshift settings. This is one of Furst's great motifs -- the, if not quite transformative, at least salvative quality of staying warm and getting busy in the face of death. Not quite love, but necessary companionship at a time of maximum uncertainty, which grows into something more, almost love, good enough, deep enough for the circumstances. Much better than nothing.