Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Spies of the Balkans

Costa Zannis has rapidly risen through the ranks of the police in Salonika.  Hitler's armies are poised to invade Greece and Zannis finds himself in the midst of an oncoming war.  He has just dealt with the death of a German national and now he has a German Jew who is trying to smuggle children through Greece to Turkey to deal with.

Later that same woman wants Zannis to help smuggle more Jews.  However, before he can consider that, Italy invades Greece.  Being a reservist, Zannis is called up.  Things are quiet for the most part because Mussolini's troops have invaded late in the year and the mountains are an advantage to the Greeks.

Zannis is tasked with liaising with Marko Pavlic from Yugoslavia.  They find to each other's delight that they are both policemen.  Unfortunately for both of them, their war doesn't last very long because their barracks is bombed.  Before parting ways Zannis convinces Pavlic to become involved in the smuggling of Jews out of Germany.  Back in Salonika, Zannis begins to set up his network.

How long can the network stay up and running before the Gestapo break it down?  Will Hitler's ambitions for the Balkan countries stop the network?  Author Alan Furst has written an exciting spy thriller that the reader will find as hard to put down as I did.

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