A few weeks ago my father sent me a box full of historical novels, mostly with a nautical theme. My father has good taste in such books; he was the person who clued me in to the genius that is Patrick O’Brian. Dark Voyage is the first book from box, and while it’s no Master and Commander, it was quite an exciting read. Alan Furst does an excellent job of placing his characters in a believable—an exceptionally believable—picture of Europe and North Africa during the early years of World War Two. Eric DeHaan is captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordendam, co-opted by the British Navy for use in clandestine operations that could not be carried out by military vessels.
Furst’s prose reminds me of Ian Fleming’s, in that it’s simple, direct, and focuses very much on creating a convincing physical world. In this sort of book its very important that events seem, if not probable, then at least plausible. It’s the great strength of Fleming’s Bond books, and it’s the great strength of Dark Voyage. In terms of the plot, one of the ways Furst maintains this sense of plausibility, is to keep his characters, and the reader, in the dark. They often do not know the purpose or nature of their cargo, so they must travel into hostile waters in perhaps the most dangerous years of the last century. The sense of tension in this book is amazing, and though nothing really happens for pages at a time, those pages are still exciting and the few moments of real violence are even more significant and harrowing as a result.
I won’t reveal how the novel ends, but it is abruptly and appropriately, and well before the end of the war, just a day or so after the German invasion of Russia. Nothing lasts forever in the world Furst creates (or re-creates); people and things are used up well before the end of the conflict.
Next up is William Gibson’s Spook Country.
