Flitting About 
Thomas Jones
- The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst
Alan Furst’s much-admired thrillers are set in Continental Europe during the Second World War and the years leading up to it. His heroes are more likely to be journalists, film producers or novelists than professional spies or rugged military types, though the protagonist of Dark Voyage (2004) is a fairly rugged merchant seaman. The hero of The Polish Officer (1995) is, as the title hints, an officer in the Polish army, but rather than being a fighter he works for military intelligence as a cartographer. Many of them are displaced persons, taking refuge from Fascism in countries that have not yet fallen to Hitler. They are ordinary men who under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances are compelled to act like heroes.
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Thomas Jones is one of the London Review’s contributing editors.
Other articles by this contributor:
Forget the Dylai Lama · Bob Dylan
Diary · The Last Days of eBay
Welly-Whanging · Alan Hollinghurst
Diary · My Life as a Geek
Whisky and Soda Man · J.G. Ballard
Rut after Rut after Rut · Denis Johnson’s Vietnam
This Is Not That Place · David Eggers escapes from Sudan
swete lavender · Molesworth
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