Spies of the Balkans
Alan Furst sets his espionage novel in Salonika in 1940, a port city where Greeks, Turks, Jews, and refugees from Hitler's Europe all rub against each other. Costa Zannis is a senior police officer who handles cases the regular detectives cannot touch, which puts him in contact with smugglers, exiles, and intelligence officers from half a dozen countries. As the Italians press south and the Germans loom behind them, Zannis is drawn into an underground escape route for Jews fleeing the Reich. Furst writes the book at the temperature of a 1940s film noir, full of cafes, ferries, and quiet conversations in back rooms. It is one of his most admired entries in a long series of Second World War espionage novels.
What you might want to know about Spies of the Balkans
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A Greek police detective in 1940 Salonika is pulled into spy work as the war closes in on the Balkans.
On his One Grand Books list Hanks wrote that the book offers espionage and mystery and politics and war at a time when one was either a hero, a villain, or a coward, with no exceptions.
No. The books share a world and a few characters across the edges, but each stands on its own.
Spies of the Balkans was written by Alan Furst, published in 2010 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Spies of the Balkans is 288 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Spies of the Balkans takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Spies of the Balkans is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
