{"product_id":"the-foreign-correspondent-isbn-9780812967975","title":"The Foreign Correspondent","description":"From Alan Furst, whom The New York Times calls “America’s preeminent spy novelist,” comes an epic story of romantic love, love of country, and love of freedom–the story of a secret war fought in elegant hotel bars and first-class railway cars, in the mountains of Spain and the backstreets of Berlin. It is an inspiring, thrilling saga of everyday people forced by their hearts’ passion to fight in the war against tyranny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy 1938, hundreds of Italian intellectuals, lawyers and journalists, university professors and scientists had escaped Mussolini’s fascist government and taken refuge in Paris. There, amid the struggles of émigré life, they founded an Italian resistance, with an underground press that smuggled news and encouragement back to Italy. Fighting fascism with typewriters, they produced 512 clandestine newspapers. The Foreign Correspondent is their story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eParis, a winter night in 1938: a murder\/suicide at a discreet lovers’ hotel. But this is no romantic traged–it is the work of the OVRA, Mussolini’s fascist secret police, and is meant to eliminate the editor of Liberazione\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003ea clandestine émigré newspaper. Carlo Weisz, who has fled from Trieste and secured a job as a foreign correspondent with the Reuters bureau, becomes the new editor. \u003cbr\u003eWeisz is, at that moment, in Spain, reporting on the last campaign of the Spanish civil war. But as soon as he returns to Paris, he is pursued by the French Sûreté\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003eby agents of the OVRA, and by officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the desperate politics of Europe on the edge of war, a foreign correspondent is a pawn, worth surveillance, or blackmail, or murder. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Foreign Correspondent is the story of Carlo Weisz and a handful of antifascists: the army officer known as “Colonel Ferrara,” who fights for a lost cause in Spain; Arturo Salamone, the shrewd leader of a resistance group in Paris; and Christa von Schirren, the woman who becomes the love of Weisz’s life, herself involved in a doomed resistance underground in Berlin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Foreign Correspondent is Alan Furst at his absolute best–taut and powerful, enigmatic and romantic, with sharp, seductive writing that takes the reader through darkness and intrigue to a spectacular denouement.Alan Furst is widely recognized as the master of the historical spy novel. He is the author of Night Soldiers, Dark Star, The Polish Officer, The World at Night, Red Gold, Kingdom of Shadows, Blood of Victory, and Dark Voyage. Born in New York, he has lived for long periods in France, especially Paris. He now lives on Long Island, New York. Visit the author’s website at www.alanfurst.net.In Paris, the last days of autumn; a gray, troubled sky at daybreak,   the fall of twilight at noon, followed, at seven-thirty, by slanting   rains and black umbrellas as the people of the city hurried home past   the bare trees. On the third of December, 1938, in the heart of the   Seventh Arrondissement, a champagne-colored Lancia sedan turned the   corner of the rue Saint-Dominique and rolled to a stop in the rue   Augereau. Then the man in the backseat leaned forward for a moment   and the chauffeur drove a few feet further and stopped again, this   time in the shadow between two streetlamps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The man in the back of the Lancia was called Ettore, il conte   Amandola--the nineteenth Ettore, Hector, in the Amandola line, and   count only the grandest of his titles. Closer to sixty than fifty, he   had dark, slightly bulging eyes, as though life had surprised him,   though it had never dared to do that, and a pink flush along his   cheekbones, which suggested a bottle of wine with lunch, or   excitement in the anticipation of an event planned for the evening.   In fact, it was both. For the rest of his colors, he was a very   silvery sort of man: his silver hair, gleaming with brilliantine, was   brushed back to a smooth surface, and a thin silver mustache, trimmed   daily with a scissors, traced his upper lip. Beneath a white wool   overcoat, on the lapel of a gray silk suit, he wore a ribbon holding   a silver Maltese cross on a blue enamel field, which meant he held   the rank of cavaliere in the Order of the Crown of Italy. On the   other lapel, the silver medal of the Italian Fascist party; a tipped   square with diagonal fasces--a bundle of birch rods tied, with a red   cord, to an axe. This symbolized the power of the consuls of the   Roman Empire, who had the real rods and axe carried before them, and   had the authority to beat with the birch rods, or behead with the axe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Count Amandola looked at his watch, then rolled down the rear window   and peered through the rain at a short street, the rue du Gros   Caillou, that intersected the rue Augereau. From this point of   observation--and he had twice made sure of it earlier that week--he   could see the entry of the Hotel Colbert; a rather subtle entry, only   the name in gold letters on the glass door, and a spill of light from   the lobby that shone on the wet pavement. A rather subtle hotel, the   Colbert, quiet, discreet, that catered to les affaires cinq-a-sept;   amours conducted between five and seven, those flexible hours of the   early evening. But, Amandola thought, a little taste of fame for you   tomorrow. The hotel commissionaire, holding a large umbrella, left   the entry and headed briskly down the street, toward the rue   Saint-Dominique. Once more, Amandola looked at his watch. 7:32, it   said. No, he thought, it is 1932 hours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For this occasion, twenty-four-hour time, military time, was   obviously the proper form. He was, after all, a major, had taken a   commission in 1915, served in the Great War, and had the medals, and   seven lavishly tailored uniforms, to prove it. Served with   distinction--officially recognized--in the purchasing office of the   Ministry of War, in Rome, where he had given orders, maintained   discipline, read and signed forms and letters, and made and answered   calls on the telephone, his military decorum scrupulous in every way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And so it had remained, since 1927, in his tenure as a senior   official in the Pubblica Sicurezza, the department of Public Security   of the Ministry of the Interior, set up by Mussolini's chief of   national police a year earlier. The work was not so different from   his job during the war; the forms, the letters, the telephone, and   the maintenance of discipline--his staff sat at attention at their   desks, and formality was the rule in all discourse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    1944 hours. Rain drummed steadily on the roof of the Lancia and   Amandola pulled his overcoat tighter, against the chill. Outside on   the sidewalk, a maid--under her open raincoat a gray-and-white   uniform--was pulled along by a dachshund wearing a sweater. As the   dog sniffed at the pavement and began to circle, the maid squinted   through the window at Amandola. Rude, the Parisians. He did not   bother to turn away, simply looked through her, she did not exist. A   few minutes later, a black square-bodied taxi pulled up to the entry   of the Colbert. The commissionaire hopped out, leaving the door open,   as a couple emerged from the lobby; he white-haired, tall and   stooped, she younger, wearing a hat with a veil. They stood together   under the commissionaire's umbrella, she raised her veil and they   kissed passionately--until next Tuesday, my beloved. Then the woman   climbed into the taxi, the man tipped the commissionaire, raised his   own umbrella, and strode around the corner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    1950 hours. Ecco, Bottini!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The chauffeur was watching his side-view mirror. \"Il galletto,\" he   said. Yes, the cockerel, so they called him, for he did indeed strut.   Heading along the rue Augereau toward the Colbert, he was the   classical short man who refused to be short: posture erect, back   stiff, chin high, chest out. Bottini was a Turinese lawyer who had   emigrated to Paris in 1935, dissatisfied with the fascist policies of   his native country. A dissatisfaction no doubt sharpened by a good   public beating and a half a bottle of castor oil, administered by a   Blackshirt action squad as a crowd gathered and gawked in silence.   Always a liberal, probably a socialist, possibly a secret Communist,   Amandola suspected--slippery as eels, these types--Bottini was a   friend to the oppressed, and prominent in the   friends-to-the-oppressed community.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But the problem with il galletto wasn't that he strutted, the problem   was that he crowed. Arriving in Paris, he had naturally joined the   Giustizia e Liberta--justice and liberty--organization, the largest   and most determined group of the antifascist opposition, and then   become editor of one of their clandestine newspapers, Liberazione,   written in Paris, smuggled into Italy, then printed and covertly   distributed. Infamita! This paper kicked like a mule; barbed, witty,   knowing, and savage, with not a wisp of respect for Italy's glorious   fascismo or Il Duce or any of his achievements. But now, Amandola   thought, this galletto was done crowing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As Bottini turned the corner of the rue Augereau, he took off his   steel-framed eyeglasses, wiped the rain from the lenses with a large   white handkerchief, and put the glasses in a case. Then he entered   the hotel. He was precisely on schedule, according to the   surveillance reports. On Tuesday evenings, from eight to ten, always   in Room 44, he would entertain his mistress, the wife of the French   socialist politician LaCroix. LaCroix, who had headed one ministry,   then another, in the Popular Front government. LaCroix, who stood   beside the Prime Minister, Daladier, in the newspaper photographs.   LaCroix, who dined at his club every Tuesday and played bridge until   midnight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was 2015 before a taxi pulled up to the Colbert and Madame LaCroix   emerged, and ran with tiny steps into the hotel. Amandola got only a   glimpse of her--brick red hair, pointy white nose, a Rubenesque   woman, fleshy and abundant. And greatly appetitious, according to the   operatives who'd rented Room 46 and eavesdropped on the other side of   the wall. Subjects are vocal, and noisy, said one report. Describing,   Amandola supposed, every sort of moan and squeal as the two went at   their coupling like excited swine. Oh, he knew her sort; she liked   her food and she liked her wine and she liked her naked   pleasures--any and all of them no doubt, the full deck of naughty   playing cards. Libertines. A full-length mirror faced the foot of the   large bed in Room 44 and surely they took advantage of it, thrilled   to watch themselves thrashing about, thrilled to watch--everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, Amandola thought, one must wait.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They had learned it was the lovers' custom to spend a few minutes in   conversation before they got busy. So, give them a little time.   Amandola's OVRA operatives--OVRA was the name of the secret police,   the political police, established by Mussolini in the 1920s--were   already inside the hotel, had taken rooms that afternoon, accompanied   by prostitutes. Who might well, in time, be found by the police and   interrogated, but what could they say? He was bald, he wore a beard,   he said his name was Mario. But bald Mario and bearded Mario would   be, at that point, long gone across the border, back in Italy. At   most, the girls would get their pictures in the newspaper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Madame LaCroix, when the OVRA men burst into the room, would no doubt   be indignant, this was, she would assume, some vile trick perpetrated   by her serpent of a husband. But she would not assume it for long,   and when the revolver appeared, with its long snout of a silencer, it   would be too late to scream. Would Bottini? Or would he plead for his   life? No, Amandola thought, he would do neither. He would curse them,   a vain galletto to the end, and take his medicine. In the temple.   Then, the silencer unscrewed, the revolver placed in Bottini's hand.   So sad, so dreary, a doomed love affair, a lover's despair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And would the world believe it? The tryst that ended in tragedy? Most   would, but some wouldn't, and it was for them that this event had   been staged, the ones who would know immediately that this was   politics, not passion. Because this was not a quiet disappearance,   this was public, and flamboyant, so meant to serve as a warning: We   will do anything we want to do, you cannot stop us. The French would   be outraged, but then, the French were habitually outraged. Well, let   them sputter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was 2042 when the leader of the OVRA squad left the hotel and   crossed to Amandola's side of the rue Augereau. Hands in pockets,   head down, he wore a rubber raincoat and a black felt hat, rain   dripping off the brim. As he passed the Lancia, he raised his head,   revealing a dark, heavy face, a southern face, and made eye contact   with Amandola. A brief glance, but sufficient. It's done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    4 December, 1938. The Cafe Europa, in a narrow street near the Gare   du Nord, was owned by a Frenchman of Italian descent. A man of   fervent and heated opinions, an idealist, he made his back room   available to a group of Parisian giellisti, so-called for their   membership in the Giustizia e Liberta--known informally by the   initials GL, thus giellisti. There were eight of them that morning,   called to an emergency meeting. They all wore dark overcoats, sitting   around a table in the unlit room, and, except for the one woman, they   wore their hats. Because the room was cold and damp, and also, though   nobody ever said it out loud, because it was somehow in keeping with   the conspiratorial nature of their politics: the antifascist   resistance, the Resistenza.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They were all more or less in midlife, emigres from Italy, and   members of a certain class--a lawyer from Rome, a medical school   professor from Venice, an art historian from Siena, a man who had   owned a pharmacy in the same city, the woman formerly an industrial   chemist in Milan. And so on--several with eyeglasses, most of them   smoking cigarettes, except for the Sienese professor of art history,   lately employed as a meter reader for the gas company, who smoked a   powerful little cigar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Three of them had brought along a certain morning newspaper, the very   vilest and most outrageous of the Parisian tabloids, and a copy lay   on the table, folded open to a grainy photograph beneath the headline   MURDER\/SUICIDE AT LOVERS HOTEL. Bottini, bare-chested, sat propped   against a headboard, a sheet pulled up to his waist, eyes open and   unseeing, blood on his face. By his side, a shape beneath the sheet,   its arms flung wide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The leader of the group, Arturo Salamone, let the newspaper lie open   for a time, a silent eulogy. Then, with a sigh, he flipped it closed,   folded it in half, and put it by the side of his chair. Salamone was   a great bear of a man, with heavy jowls, and thick eyebrows that met   at the bridge of his nose. He had been a shipping agent in Genoa, now   worked as a bookkeeper at an insurance company. \"So then,\" he said.   \"Do we accept this?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I do not,\" said the lawyer. \"Staged.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Do we agree?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The pharmacist cleared his throat and said, \"Are we completely sure?   That this was, assassination?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I am,\" Salamone said. \"Bottini had no such brutality in him. They   killed him, and his lover--the OVRA, or someone like them. This was   ordered by Rome; it was planned, prepared, and executed. And not only   did they murder Bottini, they defamed him: 'this is the sort of man,   unstable, vicious, who speaks against our noble fascism.' And, of   course, there are people who will believe it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Some will, always, anything,\" the woman chemist said. \"But we shall   see what the Italian papers say about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"They will have to follow the government line,\" the Venetian professor said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The woman shrugged. \"As usual. Still, we have a few friends there,   and a simple word or two, alleged or supposedly, can cast a shadow.   Nobody just reads the news these days, they decipher it, like a code.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Then how do we counter?\" the lawyer said. \"Not an eye for an eye.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No,\" Salamone said. \"We are not them. Not yet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"We must expose it,\" the woman said. \"The true story, in Liberazione.   And hope the clandestine press, here and in Italy, will follow us. We   can't let these people get away with what they've done, we can't let   them think they got away with it. And we should say where this   monstrosity came from.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Where is that?\" the lawyer said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She pointed upward. \"The top.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The lawyer nodded. \"Yes, you're right. Perhaps it could be done as an   obituary, in a box outlined in black, a political obituary. It should   be strong, very strong--here is a man, a hero, who died for what he   believed in, a man who told truths the government could not bear to   have revealed.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Will you write it?\" Salamone said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I will do a draft,\" the lawyer said. \"Then we'll see.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The professor from Siena said, \"Maybe you could end by writing that   when Mussolini and his friends are swept away, we will pull down his   fucking statue on a horse and raise one to honor Bottini.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The lawyer took pen and pad from his pocket and made a note.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"What about the family?\" the pharmacist said. \"Bottini's family.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I will talk to his wife,\" Salamone said. \"And we have a fund, we   must help as best we can.\"New York Times bestseller; Author of Blood of Victory and Dark Voyage [quote]--Los Angeles Times Book Review","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302475321573,"sku":"NP9780812967975","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812967975_9d68a177-b7a7-4de6-8804-f17d738bcf22.jpg?v=1767739393","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-foreign-correspondent-isbn-9780812967975","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}