Blood of Victory
Alan Furst
Random House Publishing Group
<p><b>"In 1939, as the armies of Europe mobilized for war, the British secret services undertook operations to impede the exportation of Roumanian oil to Germany. They failed.<br><br>"Then, in the autumn of 1940, they tried again."</b><br><br>So begins <i>Blood of Victory</i>, a novel rich with suspense, historical insight, and the powerful narrative immediacy we have come to expect from bestselling author Alan Furst. The book takes its title from a speech given by a French senator at a conference on petroleum in 1918: "Oil," he said, "the blood of the earth, has become, in time of war, the blood of victory."<br><br>November 1940. The Russian writer I. A. Serebin arrives in Istanbul by Black Sea freighter. Although he travels on behalf of an &#233;migr&#233; organization based in Paris, he is in flight from a dying and corrupt Europe--specifically, from Nazi-occupied France. Serebin finds himself facing his fifth war, but this time he is an exile, a man without a country, and...</br></br></br></br></br></br></p>