Review of Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

Set in 1938 in Paris, this spy thriller reveals an interesting chapter in history. America had no CIA or equivalent intelligence agency. Roosevelt had the foresight to realize he had to prepare for the inevitable war, so he used his extensive personal relationships to collect intelligence on the Nazis and funded this work with private donors. Frederic Stahl, the main character of Mission to Paris, is a movie star with no training in being a spy, but while in Paris making a movie he becomes one. He’s from Vienna originally so the Nazi propagandists in Paris assume that he will contribute willingly in their political warfare to undermine the French people. They assumed wrongly, but Stahl is encouraged by a state department diplomat to play along with their plans as a cover. And we are off in an intriguing mire of trouble that, as you might guess, escalates beyond Stahl’s control very quickly.

Stahl is not by nature a spy sort of person. He’s good with the ladies, but no James Bond. When things go wrong, he doesn’t instantly see the creative escape nor does violence occur to him at first. In the face of cold-blooded killing, he responds with shock. In other words, Furst has avoided all the spy clichés and created a believable character. Just don’t expect action-packed pages or not in the nail-biting, page-ripping mode. Lots happens, danger threatens, and sometimes bursts out, but you’ll have time as a reader to weigh the characters’ choices along with them, trace the strands, and anticipate the disasters that may or may not come about.

Furst plays with stereotypes of Paris. His setting moves in and out of the expected. Sometimes the food, the romances, the elegance are all deployed with charming and entertaining effect—the delightful Paris we all think we know. Other times, we witness a darker Paris, both in terms of seamier neighborhoods and in terms of Parisian character. The people seem ill equipped to combat the insidious Nazi machine that is eating away at their hearts and minds and will soon drive over them with tanks. What of the grace Furst has also depicted will survive? For the characters that’s very much an open question and for us, immersed in this moment, we are able to feel the precipice, inch our toes forward and wonder once again if the world will plunge off irrevocably into the Nazi’s grim vision.