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Read Blood Of Victory (2015)

Blood of Victory (2015)

Online Book

Author
Rating
3.96 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0297829513 (ISBN13: 9780297829515)
Language
English
Publisher
weidenfeld

Blood Of Victory (2015) - Plot & Excerpts

Oil is the blood of victory. War has become mechanized. Stop the tanks and trucks from rolling, and you effectively cripple an army and end a war. During WW2, about 60% of German oil supply came from Romania. It got shipped to Germany by tankers navigating the Danube. This book is about a covert effort to interdict the German oil.At one point in the book, one of the characters says that the British could stop the oil any time, if they really wanted. Their bombers were only six hours away, and they could use them to take out the oil fields. The reason they didn't, according to this character, was Money. Wars come and go, but the monied interests remain. This idea bothered me, so I did a little bit of research about it. It turns out that the British didn't ever try to bomb the oil fields. There were two American raids on the fields, both of them after the events of this book, which takes place before the Americans got into the war, and just before the German invasion of Russia. The second of the American raids used about 120 bombers. They adopted a radical strategy for the raid, coming in at the target at extremely low altitude - tree top level as some people called it, though it must have been higher than that. The theory was that this would increase the accuracy of the bombing, and might reduce some of the losses from the extreme anti-aircraft defense at the fields. About 1/3 of the bombers were shot down in the raid, and it temporarily reduced supplies from the fields by about 1/3. The raid was considered a major success at the time.The upshot of my research is I don't know what to make of the failure of the British to conduct such a raid earlier. It sounds like the raid was enormously difficult, even when we had greater air superiority. And we didn't follow up the one raid with others. So my guess is that there were other reasons than Money for not carrying out the raid. And what that means is that the character, who was probably a populist/socialist, was speaking out of his own prejudice, and not simply acting as a mouthpiece for Furst (as I had assumed).Anyway, attacks on the fields being impractical, the scheme involves sabotaging the Danube to stop or slow down the tanker traffic. That's the objective of the main character, an emigre Russian writer who now lives without a country, but decides that he has to do something to fight fascism. Even though the objective is clear, the means are alway hazy. Everything in Furst's world is covered in shadow. There are betrayals, and betrayals on top of the betrayals, and its hard or basically impossible to figure out who is behind them. And its also very much beside the point.Rather, the focus is on the efforts of Serebin. He's been stripped of pretty much every attachment he has in the world. And he's left clinging to an idea that perhaps he can do something to hamper the Nazi's. In some ways he's doing this because, without this goal, he has nothing left at all. The atmosphere, as with Furst's other books, is fantastic. Except for the end, the book lacks any action at all. Rather, this world of espionage seems to leap from the dull and plodding, to cataclysm, and then settles back into dull. That doesn't mean the book is boring. What I mean is that the way that Serebin goes about achieving his goal is mostly uneventful, until something shocking or terrifying comes into play. It's driven by the character himself, and not by action.The only thing I really have to fault Furst with is his consistency. In a few months I will be hard pressed to distinguish this book from the others I've read. They are all very much of a piece. The main characters seem more similar to me than different. The world is grey and shadowy. There's no one and nothing to trust. And I like all of this very much, and yet this time I found myself hoping for just a bit more. Overall, I was very satisfied with this book, but not blown away.

This book is somewhat disappointing in that all Furst books, including this one, have received such rave reviews. Furst is that rare bird who writes solid genre fiction (in his case, World War II spy novels), while seeming to attract the attention of literati types for his well-drawn characters and abilities to convey appropriately ominous atmospherics. But I just don't get the hype.Even for spy novels this book is somewhat winding and plotless. It concerns the attempts of Ivan Serebin, an exiled Russian writer, and a British-Turkish spy ring to stop the Ploesti, Romania oil fields from contributing their "blood of victory" to the Nazi regime in early 1940. Admittedly, Furst does do a good job of summoning up the feeling of Bucharest, Belgrade, Istanbul, and Paris under war and occupation, but his characters all come across as the moody and brooding types, appropriately quippy and world-weary but with little depth. All of these noirish personalities, a new one seemingly every page, quickly become stock. And as with so many historical novels, Furst can't help but have his characters throw in non sequitur contemporary allusions and background.So despite his nicely pithy writing style, and his obvious and extensive knowledge of World War II-era Europe, I'm probably not going to be spending more time with Furst.

What do You think about Blood Of Victory (2015)?

This novel by Furst follows his "Kingdom of Shadows," a book I very much enjoyed. It jumps ahead from the last novel to November 24, 1940 and it is primarily set in the countries that border the Black Sea. The Germans have already taken Paris and this book is much more overtly a spy thriller than the last. New set of primary characters, all interesting, and for me a somewhat surprising appearance of a character from the prior novel that we thought was possibly dead. We learn there was much more to him then previously thought. The story revolves in various ways around a somewhat renowned but minor Russian writer from Odessa, I. A. Serabin, an émigré living initially in Paris and other places and how he is drawn into the war. After an incident he realizes he must make a decision to either fight or flee and he chooses to aid the British in an undercover role through a surprising contact. The objective here is to stop the flow of the "Blood of Victory," which is oil and specifically Roumanian oil to Germany. Although this was an interesting read, dripping with atmosphere and some excellent action sequences and set in some far off and unusual places, it didn't really pull me in quite like "Kingdom of Shadows" did. Still, this was a very suspenseful book, with some exciting heart racing scenes. I'll certainly be reading more from Furst. 3 1/2 stars
—Ron

Absolutely the best book I have read this year so far - and for a long long time. The only thing wrong with it is the title, which is a "thriller" title. And this is so NOT a thriller. A small spare tight novel which brilliantly evokes emigre Paris and just the whole Russian emigre experience - I could SMELL the damp raincoats, the slightly spicy air and the ever-present newsprint. A wonderful wonderful book.Alan Furst does not patronize his reader - he assumes you will understand. And I do, I absolutely do. Thank you, Mr. Furst.
—Kyra

If you, like me, are addicted to Furst's series of noirish and romantic historical spy thrillers from the pre- and early World War 2 period, you will be compelled to read this one. The tale covers the struggles of a Russian emigree writer in 1940 to make a contribution through espionage toward stopping Hitler's access to oil in Romania. The title refers to a statement at a 1918 oil conference: "Oil, the blood of the earth, in the time of war, has become the blood of victory." At the time of this story, France is occupied and invasion of the Soviet Union is on the horizon. As always, Furst's historical evocation of people and places in Paris and diverse exotic places such as Istanbul and Bucharest seem impeccably real, lending to the term most typically applied to his work: "atmospheric". Even minor characters seem to come alive with his deft characterizations. As usual, the spy work seems tenuous and quietly courageous, involving teamwork from all walks of life and nationalities. And the accomplishments often seem minor in comparison to that of heroes in many espionage thrillers, but that adds to the realism.
—Michael

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