Sunday April 10, 2005 Dark Voyage
Dark Voyage: A Novel - Alan Furst (2004)
*** (out of 5)
Dark Voyage is Furst's latest offering set in warn-torn Europe during World War II. In Dark Voyage, Eric DeHaan, captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordendam, is enlisted by the Allies to engage, along with his crew, in a series of three covert missions. In the first mission, DeHaan transports British commandos to a nocturnal raid in Tunisia. The second mission consists of transporting supplies to beleagured British Expeditionary Forces in Crete. A dicey trip through Nazi-controlled regions of the Baltic Sea in order to deliver HUFFDUFF equipment is the objective of the third mission, the most dangerous of the three.
Furst is known as a novelist with a gift for nuance and subtlety. This might work in many of his novels, but I found the plot of Dark Voyage to be a bit listless. That being said, the strength of Dark Voyage, however, lies more in the settings and the characters with which DeHaan comes into contact than in the plot. And quite a cast of characters it is: in addition to DeHaan himself - a likable 'everyman' motivated by patriotic duty rather than an overt sense of heroism - Furst introduces the reader to a somewhat motely crew (no pun intended) and a diverse passenger list including an alluring female Russian journalist, a Swiss spy, and a Jewish medical student fleeing the Nazis. Most of these characters 'work'. The notable exception is the Russian journalist and her almost gratuitous sexual relationship with DeHaan.
Dark Voyage is not Furst's best work, but it is a decent work nonetheless.
( Apr 10 2005, 10:21:54 PM PDT )
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