All Intensive Purposes

Alan Furst, Blood of Victory

Furst does a wonderful job of portraying life in the late 30's and early 40's in Europe, and I've enjoyed each of his books tremendously. This one hasn't been grabbing me quite as much, and I'm not sure why. The new setting in this book is Istanbul, but perhaps Furst's source materials weren't as comprehensive, because he doesn't do as much with Istanbul as he's done with other cities in the past. There's Paris, too, and the Brasserie Heinenger (sp?), of course, but only enough to whet the appetite. I've been having a harder time than usual keeping the characters straight -- the Russian names, maybe? But it's still much fun.