Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst: book review

The Spies of the Balkans (2010) is set in 1940/41 in Salonika—Thessalonika—a mountain village on the border of Bulgaria and Greece, known as ‘the Jerusalem of the Balkans.’ Much of Europe is occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini’s Italian army is in Albania on the Greek frontier. Germany was now interested in the region.

Detective Costa Zannis had an international reputation in the political sphere and was in much demand. A German was in town, and so were a lot of spies. But this German was a Jewish woman, Frau Emilia Krebs, trying to get her friend’s two children out of Berlin to Turkey. Costa becomes embroiled in a plot to smuggle Jews from Europe to Istanbul.

Residents of Salonika were preparing for resistance, buying weapons and stockpiling them. World War II brought disaster for the Jewish Greeks—in 1941 the Germans occupied Greece and began actions against the Jewish population.

From occupied Paris to Berlin, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade and Istanbul, this espionage novel becomes intriguing when Costa falls in love with Greek Demetria and his plot to help the escaping Jews is jeopardized.

Furst is an American author and most of his works are set around World War II. He lived in France for many years and Paris features in all his novels—The Spies of the Balkans is no exception. Recently this year, Furst received the Helmerich Award, a literary prize that recognizes an author’s body of works. His best known works are from his Night Soldiers series, such as The Foreign Correspondent (2006) and The Spies of Warsaw (2008). The Spies of the Balkans is the eleventh and most recent novel from the Night Soldiers series.

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