This book marks a departure of sorts for Alan Furst - moving from the salons of Western and Central Europe to the altogether more unstable terrain of the Balkans - an area yet to be explored in his fiction. In other respects, however, we're on classic Furst ground, following the double dealings of shady figures in the early years of the Second World War. The action takes place in the countryside of Macedonia, around the time of the British SIS inspired coup there in April of 1941, and then in Greece, especially Salonika, during the invasion itself. Like THE SPIES OF WARSAW, it's a multi-spy novel, involving Turkish, Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian operatives, with a double hero, or rather a principal and a strong second character. The latter is a senior police official in Salonika, involved in resistance as the Germans and Italians occupy the country.