"Red Gold" A Novel By Alan Furst

Let me just cut to the chase - the reason why this review is here for one reason - it reads like motion picutre that was made during The Golden Era. It's just a matter of time before a studio like "Paramount" or "Miramax" buys the rights and boils down the plot to something workable for a 2 1/2 hour time frame. Get this book before a studio executive does...

Cover Art

I wouldn’t actually encourage fans of classic Film Noir movies to do this… but if you actually cut the covers off of these Alan Furst novels and framed them for your home I wouldn’t blame you. If you downloaded the “Jay-pegs” of these covers from the internet and did some resampling in PhotoShop to get some higher quality prints, I wouldn’t blame you either… it might be a violation of copyright laws - but I still wouldn’t blame you. Most of the covers of Alan Furst's novels look like stills from some of your favorite “intrigue and suspense” black and white movies, as if the pictures were taken by "The Third Man" Cinematographer Robert Krasker. Most of the photos are clichés of such scenes you would expect in such films - dimly lit streets with dense luminescent fog and a single mysterious character or two in an ambiguous pose...

These novels are exactly what those of us who enjoy those classic movies have been asking for, fresh novels full of the mystery in the style of those classic motion pictures and full of “atmosphere”. That is exactly what is perfect about "Red Gold," and unfortunately that is exactly what is wrong with Red Gold at the same time. Red Gold is enough to satisfy my appetite for “literary film noir” and some times's it's just too much perfection.  In "Red Gold," there are sections with too much atmosphere and scene-setting and too thin on storyline, but they pass soon enough and the story catches up quickly.

The novel is about a former filmmaker, Jean-Claude Casson living in WWII Paris and struggling to survive on a few francs a day. He hooks up with the underground and smuggles guns from point A to point B... then hustles to get them to point C at the last minute. For the rest of the book he is hiding from someone who thinks he works for the Gestapo and at times we are lead to believe Jean-Claud's just paranoid. In the end the Gestapo does indeed have a file on him, which is quickly disposed of in a humorous manner.

Casson soon becomes the go-between for everyone involved: the underground communist party who’s supplying the money from the Soviet Union, the workers at guns to the rifle factory who work under the noses of the Nazi over-seers and finally the smugglers who are getting the guns to the hands of the resistance. Casson keeps telling who ever he’s dealing with at the moment, “This is my last job and I’m though.” only to be later running low on cash and recruited again for another errand. Each time the errands are more and more dangerous until he has no choice but to join the resistance full time… reluctantly.

Intertwining

Many times you’ll read about the extremes Casson goes through just to survive, such as selling some of his favorite articles of clothes. Just when you think Casson’s life can’t get any worse… Furst piles on the salt in our literary open wounds by showing us brief glimpses of what is going on in other parts of the resistance. The best is a brief glimpse in one a chapter [a short story with in the novel] about a radio operator who is working all through the night. With his small support team in an attic, he works at relaying messages to the British or anyone else on the resistance’s side. Meanwhile, Nazis are driving up and down the street with radio antenna “loops” on search and destroy missions for such radio operators. Mr. Furst writes in such a way that you quickly get to know the people involved in these small operations intimately. There are moments when you might be thinking, “Yea, that could be me… I could see myself doing that if I had to…”.  Furst is able to get the reader to feel the panic as the Nazis are getting close and narrow in on the signal. Furst quickly coveys the need stay on the air to get the message thought and you feel the panic as the team is making their escape and they are begging the radio operator to come with them… you can smell the sulfur of the match burn as he lit the paper so it won’t get in the hands of the Nazi.

Also, there are other circles you’ll be introduced to and at the time you wonder why you should care. But, in what I’ve learned as being the “Furst Style”, eventually there are no wasted pages. In the end every situation involves our reluctant hero Casson in the highest magnitude but you do not learn why until the last chapters.

There are little threads running though out Red Gold that lead you to other Furst's adventures.  In the final chapter of Red Gold there is a crisis involving the Germans moving oil in barges in the French canals and they must be stopped. Coincidentally sitting next to Red Gold is a copy of Blood of Victory… the story about a journalist who is recruited by the British to stop the Nazis from transporting oil across the Black Sea. One might conclude that someday Furst ties all the novels together with all his main characters from his other books, uniting around the time of the Second World War. It is a concept that he is alluding to but is just conjecture on the part of this reader...

One of The Best Books yet to be made into a Motion Picture...

Much of these novels (First "Red Gold," now "Blood of Victory" that is one-quarter finished) read in such away that you could imagine how it would be filmed. Not as  disrespect to Alan Furst but more of a complement, but this book reads as if every page is a homage to a movie written and/or directed by Orson Wells or to the movie he appeared in: "The Third Man." While reading this I couldn't help myself from hearing the soundtrack to movie... the single zither playing through out.

As far as why Vintage Aficionados fans would read these novels, that is a good question.  Alan Furst prides himself on writing these books that are historically accurate, to the point where the detail is as rich and as intense as you could imagine. From what I’ve seen so far, these books tell the seldom told story of what happened during World War II for the people who were not fighting in uniform – the civilian resistance and those who could not fight because of their age or their circumstances.

There is enough action, intrigue AND atmosphere to keep the pages turning, and they seem to be begging for a talented director and producer to make these movies into motion pictures. It's just a matter of time before some studio head catches wind of these novels and the gold mine they represent. My advice to you is to read them before that happens...

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