This novel has a semi-famous film producer named Jean Casson who finds himself drawn into the Resistance in Paris in 1941 just after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa against Russia and Stalin called for all of his spies and partisans across Europe to initiate sabotage efforts to undermine the Nazis in the occupied areas.

Now starting TRIGGER MORTIS (2015) by Anthony Horowitz. This is the first novel in a trilogy he wrote with permission from the Fleming estate that continues the adventures of James Bond.

This first book is set in Europe just after the events of "Goldfinger" (the novel, not the movie) with Pussy Galore still at Bond's side. And while 007 is still dealing with the fallout from his last adventure, he is given a new mission on short notice to take on his old nemesis SMERSH.

To be honest, it has been almost three decades since I last read a James Bond continuation novel. But my TBR pile was shrinking and I thought it was time to see if 007 (on the page) could still keep my attention. 

The book is a deep dive into the 1979-80 NBA season of the Portland Trailblazers franchise and how the team had started on a downward spiral due to widescale changes in the sport due to a new television contract, etc. and the various social undercurrents that were starting to affect both the teams and individual players.

It is very insightful so far and touches on a lot of NBA players and issues that have fallen off the radar of modern fans. I have read eight other books by Halberstam so we will have to see how this one stacks up when I finish it off.

I enjoy Greene's economical but elegant prose. 70 pages in of a book about 320 long. This line made me laugh (the narrator is a staid, retired bank manage speaking about his elderly but free-spirited aunt): "Apparently she had first come to Brighton when she was quite a young woman, full of expectations which I am afraid were partly fulfilled."