Book Log 2016 #18: Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

An American actor arrives in Paris to make a movie, and the Nazis, seeing a potential propaganda coup, pressure him to give favorable impressions about the regime to the local media. As that pressure becomes more palpabale, the actor (who is no fan of the Nazis) is drafted into an amateur spy role for the US. Throw in the required attractive woman and you have another well-crafted thriller.

It's interesting to compare Furst's novels with the Turtledove books I've been down on. There is a definite pattern to Furst's novels - an amateur pressed into spy work to fight the Nazis, trying to delay the inevitable and save the girl against the backdrop of Europe on the brink of war - but unlike Turtledove there's enough variety in setting and story to make the pattern more of a framework and less of a device to add pages. It does help that Furst's series isn't tied to a particular set of characters, allowing him to explore different aspects of prewar Europe rather than try to find new ways to make old characters interesting.

In any case, if you like the other novels in the series, you'll like this one too.