from the cover:

"Autumn 1941: In a shabby hotel off the place Clichy, the course of the war is about to change. German tanks are rolling toward Moscow. Stalin has issued a decree: All partisan operatives are to strike behind enemy lines - from Kiev to Brittany. Set in the back streets of Paris and deep in occupied France, Red Gold moves with quiet menace as predators from the dark edge of war - arms dealers, lawyers, spies, and assassins - emerge from the shadows of the Parisian underworld. In their midst is Jean Casson, once a well-to-do film producer, now a target of the Gestapo living on a few francs a day. As the occupation tightens, Casson is drawn into an ill-fated mission: running guns to combat units of the French Communist Party. Reprisals are brutal. At last the real resistance has begun. Red Gold masterfully re-creates the shadow world of French resistance in the darkest days of World War II."

A couple years ago, I changed my reading habits. I re-read The Power of Myth, the book version of the PBS series with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. In the interview, Joseph Campbell said that he thought that the best way to read was to choose an author and read straight through her/his works in order, to gain a fuller picture of the author's ideas and be able to relate each book to the next. I was intrigued and although I knew that Campbell was applying this system to much loftier books than I usually read I thought that I would try it anyway. Now I am very glad that I did. I tend to read a lot of books in series and I've found that I'm enjoying them more than before. By reading them closer together and in order I can follow the development of the story and the characters and enter more fully into the world being presented.

That has come home to me strongly in reading these books by Alan Furst. I had read a few of them over the years, scattered here and there, and I always liked them. But now, reading through them all together and in order, I can appreciate the connections in a way that I never did before. Furst visits the same characters across books, whether in the spotlight as protagonists or, often, in the background moving just offstage. The events in one book are referenced in another and we see the consequences and how those events affected other people coming later. It's really fascinating and adds another dimension to the books that wasn't there for me the first time. So thank you, Mr. Campbell.

I'm especially looking forward to the next book because I feel like this one was a bit of a cliffhanger, with an unknown knock on the door ending the story. In Furst's world of espionage an unknown person at the door can be a momentous thing. I want to know who it was!

left at the green space at Crete and Esplanade

Welcome to Bookcrossing! I've registered this book here so that I can keep up on where it goes, who reads it, and what they thought of it. Please leave a quick journal entry so I know it's safe with you, then read and enjoy! When you're through, pass the book along to someone else who will appreciate it. We can all track this book's journey and the lives it touches forever more!

Thank You!