Night Soldiers: A Novel | Alan Furst | An excellent story of espionage and friendship-...

Night Soldiers: A Novel | Alan Furst | One of the Great Spy Novels

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Night Soldiers: A ...

	Night Soldiers: A Novel Alan Furst Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2002 - 462 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An excellent story of espionage and friendship- beautifully written.

This is my first reading of an Alan Furst novel and I am overwhelmingly pleased. By far, this is the best spy novel I have read in a very long time. It reminds me of Graham Greene and Robert Stone. It is told with such nuance, historical detail and sympathy to tragedy that it holds you throughout.

The book is also a wonderful construction in story telling. Furst's novel is essentially about Khristo and the friendship he makes while training with the NKVD, how they become disenchanted and their lives during Europe's upheavel during through the 1930s and 40s. But the story is really told as five novellas. The first tells of how Khristo is recruited, his training, has friendship and his relationship with different mentors. The second involves his betrayal during the Spanish Civil War. The third has him trying to live an independent life in Paris before the war, and how he is drawn back into the shadowy world of espionage. The fourth involves his life with the French Resistance. The final story involves a trip into Eastern Europe as German armies flee Russia's advance as Khristo tries to his old mentor defect; and so we see World War 2 end as the Cold War begins. Throughout these stories the main character Khristo matures. We see the world through his eyes and those closest to him. Through that vision we see the horror of war, the tragedy of wasted life, the simple sins that undue us, and yet also the redeeming elements of human nature.

The espionage is wonderful, the spycraft seems right, but what works for this story is less the elements of genre but the elements of literature. You have richly drawn and sympathetic characters. Even the minor characters stand out as real people. The historical detail and flavor is authentic and rich. It is flavorful, as if you have gone back in time and can feel, smell and touch, as if you've gone back through a time machine.

This is a commendable effort, richly detailed and elegantly written. If you enjoy period literature or even a good well written spy story, this is what you should read.

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One of the Great Spy Novels

In "Night Soldiers" Alan Furst has created a masterpiece of tension and fear set during the interwar years of Europe. This novel, his first, centers on a ring of spies recruited from states trapped within the expanding Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. The main character, Khristo Stoianev, a Bulgarian eventually travels to fight in the Spanish Civil War, and then turns on his communist spy masters as he becomes disillusioned with both the fascist and communist movements. One of the books classic moments comes during the education of Stoianev at the hands of his NKVD handlers in Russia during a chess game. I won't spoil the episode, but Furst does an excellent job of using the game as a means of showing the ruthless nature of Soviet (and perhaps all) espionage.

"Night Soldier" introduces several characters who make appearances throughout Furst's other excellent spy novels set in the same period of time and general geographical local. Because of this fact, I highly recommend reading this novel first, although those that follow can typically be read in any particular order (the exception being the stories involving Jean Casson - World at Night and Red Gold).

What makes Furst's loosely structured series so compelling is that 1; they are very well researched and historical very accurate, especially with regard to spy craft - as I understand it through academic experience only. 2; the characters are extremely flawed, very believable and interesting to empathize with - all of the characters and their adventures provoke much thought. 3; the novels do not attempt to achieve a false sense of conclusion at their end - they always allow the reader to decide for him/herself what happens, and they rarely resolve the feeling of tension that pervades Furst's works. 4; the secondary characters are always very well developed and much more interesting than their sometimes small roles would have the reader believe- so one is always off balance (who will live, who will die - who can be trusted, who cannot?). 5; Furst does an excellent job of setting the atmosphere of terror that resulted from the conflict between fascism and stalinism during the secret wars preceding the outbreak of the Second World War.

For these reasons and more, I cannot more highly recommend "Night Soldiers" and Alan Furst's other novels to the spy-thriller enthusiast. Purchase this book, find a quiet evening to read, and enjoy.

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A Stunning and Riveting Historical Spy Novel

This is the best Furst book I've read and, in fact, it's one of the best spy novels I've ever read. Wartime Europe is the canvas and Furst applies his brush with great skill. His characters are very credible, even memorable; his tradecraft is authentic; his description of settings is unsurpassed; his ability to create a mood is uncanny and his knowledge of that era is beyond encyclopedic. Furst respects the reader's intelligence by slowly and subtlely letting the plot unfold without hitting one over head with the obvious. Furst's books are the thinking man's spy novels. I think he's much better than both Le Carre and Ambler, with whom he is often compared. A memorable book.

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A fascinating tale of espionage in the 30's and 40's

This is the second Alan Furst Book that I have read and I am rapidly becoming a fan. His books are well research and very atmospheric, with a strong emphasis on the individual agent trying to make his way through the labyrinthine plans and schemes of their superiors and rival spy masters.

In Night Soldiers, the protagonist is Khristo, a young Bulgarian of no real political belief who is recruited by the NKVD after the murder of his brother by a fascist group in his home town. The novel covers Khristo's training amongst a group of similar disaffected and rootless young central Europeans who are to serve as the NKVD's spearhead within Europe and his subsequent deployment to the Spanish civil war, where he ultimately falls foul of NKVD internal politics. Forced to flee to avoid liquidation in one of the many purges which swept the Soviet intelligence services in the 30's, Khristo ends up in Paris, ultimately becoming a resistance member and an agent for the OSS. And throughout this period Khristo's strongest connections and support network remain the team of agents with whom he had originally trained, who form a conspiracy within a conspiracy driven to ensure each members success and survival.

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456 pages of excellent storytelling

Taking history and melding it with fiction, and making it highly readable takes talent. Everything is in this book.

Furst crosses 11 years (1934 to 1945), has characters move in and out of the narrative as well as have a panoramic/epic show going on at the same time, and never for a moment does the story seem thin--actually it's thick with thoughts, intentions, hopes and dreams of the characters, and their utter and dire knowledge that the whole of Europe is going to go right down the path of total destruction. Also, I must mention the humor. The chuckle is there, right after the sadness or the disaster.

Traveling from Bulgaria to Moscow, from Stalinist Russia to a Spain steeped in civil war, Furst offers Bolshevists, the NKVD, defenders of the Republic, partisans, and on and on. There is common crime and the common war, political satire and the poignancy of a common death.

Reading Night Soldiers makes you want more.

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