Dark Voyage

“In the first nineteen months of European war, from September 1939 to March of 1941, the island nation of Britain and her allies lost, to U-boat, air, and sea attack, to mines and maritime disaster, one thousand five hundred and ninety-six merchant vessels. It was the job of the Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy to stop it, and so, on the last day of April 1941 . . .” May 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter steams up the Tagus River to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa, she flies the flag of neutral Spain and is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines, and drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmö. But she is not the Santa Rosa. She is the Noordendam, a Dutch freighter. Under the command of Captain Eric DeHaan, she sails for the Intelligence Division of the British Royal Navy, and she will load detection equipment for a clandestine operation on the Swedish coast–a secret mission, a dark voyage. A desperate voyage. One more battle in the spy wars that rage through the back alleys of the ports, from elegant hotels to abandoned piers, in lonely desert outposts, and in the souks and cafés of North Africa. A battle for survival, as the merchant ships die at sea and Britain–the last opposition to Nazi German–slowly begins to starve. A voyage of flight, a voyage of fugitives–for every soul aboard the Noordendam. The Polish engineer, the Greek stowaway, the Jewish medical officer, the British spy, the Spaniards who fought Franco, the Germans who fought Hitler, the Dutch crew itself. There is no place for them in occupied France; they cannot go home. From Alan Furst–whom The New York Times calls America’s preeminent spy novelist–here is an epic tale of war and espionage, of spies and fugitives, of love in secret hotel rooms, of courage in the face of impossible odds. Dark Voyage is taut with suspense

---

The latest in Alan Furst's superb sequence of wartime espionage thrillers.

---

May, 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter streams up the Tagus River to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa; she flies the flag of neutral Spain and is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines, and drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmo. Only she is not the "Santa Rosa", she is the "Noordendam", a Dutch freighter that sails for the Intelligence Division of the British Royal Navy and she will load detection equipment for a clandestine operation on the Swedish coast -- a secret mission, a dark voyage. Here is an epic tale of war and espionage, of spies and fugitives, of love in secret hotel rooms, of courage in the face of impossible odds.

---

Tangier, 1941 -- for Eric DeHaan, Captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordendam, life at sea has always been his great, but not his only, love affair. Recruited by Dutch Naval Intelligence while in the port of Tangier, DeHaan steers his ship, disguised as a neutral Spanish freighter, through a series of secret missions for British Naval interests, which include taking British commandos on raids against a German observation station in French Tunisia; floating in emergency convoys; transporting bombs from Alexandria to the beleaguered British forces in Crete; and installing a listening post on the southern coast of Sweden, across from German bases on the BalticSlowly, the Noordendam becomes a ship of fugitives -- a former lieutenant in the Polish navy, a Greek stowaway from Crete, a Jewish refugee medical student recruited as ship's doctor, and Maria Bromen, a Russian maritime journalist -- all on the run and trapped on the seas until the war ends.Secret operations, romance, battles in port alleys and at sea, DARK VOYAGE takes us with nail-biting suspense through the spy-saturated world of 1941. Magnificent historical espionage complete with a fighting hero -- a good-hearted man battling against an evil world.