Rating: 
Summary: Excellent historical Espionage Novel
Review: The quick review. Excellent espionage/noir novel that takes place in the darker recess of Europe pre and during World War 2. A fun and intriguing read.If you want to read the novel in total ignorance of the events contained within it skip the following paragraph. The following synopsis is pretty much spoiler free and just gives the bare bones plot of the novel. Night Soldier is the story of Khristo Stoianev from 1934 to 1945. The story of man swept by the tides of history that none the less manages to keep his head above the water. After the murder of his brother by Bulgarian National Union (the local fascists) members Khristo flees for his life lest that he be next. A Russian Communist recruiter has facilitated the escape, which leads to his recruitment to the NKVD (precursor to the KGB). Khristo who is not a communist is stuck in this evil juggernaut of a machine. The only exit is usually death. Like any member of the NKVD Khristo is subject to the bloody power struggles within it. A change in power at the top of the NKVD leaves Khristo with the short end of the stick. To save his life he flees Spain where he was involved in the civil war to Paris. It's very much of a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire since Germany soon annihilate the French and British forces. Khristo eventually hooks up with the French Resistance movement and trough them with the OSS. On one last mission for the OSS in Prague leads to surprise encounter with his past. Under constant threat to be captured by the Nazi's and with the Russians quickly approaching and Khristo must decide on how important a figure of his past is to him. Alan Furst fills this novel with enough interesting details and tid bits on the OSS, NKDV, the Spanish Civil War and the general conditions in Europe pre and during World War 2, that the novel would be worth buying just for that. Luckily for us readers the story of Night Soldiers is a fascinating one. It's full of interesting twists and turns and very enjoyable action sequences. Alan Furst has the ability to quickly give a history, vibe and attitude of the various locations in the novel that gives it greater depth. Alan Furst creates interesting three-dimensional characters with believable motivations and his minor characters are quickly delineated and have some substance to them. There are no cardboard cut outs in this novel.
At times the novel feels so authentic that it feels like a biography and not a work of fiction. Alan Furst has done his research and it show's. I am just in the process of reading The Sword and the Shield: A history of the KGB and I can tell you that the details on the NKDV are spot on. If you enjoyed Phillip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy you will enjoy Night Solidiers. They both immerse you into the darkness that was the Third Reich in the case of Berlin Noir and Communist Russia in Night Soldiers. I had difficulty in putting down this book it was mesmerising. Well worth your time and hard earned cash.
Rating:
Summary: Spy Thriller
Review: This is a thrilling spy novel, set against the historical events occurring in eastern Europe during the time that Adolf Hitler rises to power and great nations prepare to engage in the bloody second world war. It is the fictional story of Khristo Stoianev, a young Bulgarian youth that is forced from his home and caught up in events that he barely understands. Escaping to Russia, he is indoctrinated and trained as a communist and a spy where he joins the NKVD (pre-KGB). This rather lengthy novel narrates his journey and experiences, including time spent working in the Spanish civil war, pre WWII France, occupied France, and a trip across almost all of wartime eastern Europe during the Russian advance. Despite this being a work of fiction, Furst provides the reader with a very real glimpse into prewar and wartime Europe, from the brutality of local Nazi groups, to the horrors of war, and through examples of the types of espionage from occupied France. He depicts the absolute paranoia of the Russian espionage groups stemming from the nations leader Joseph Stalin, with Khristo himself barely escaping the radical purges. While becoming involved in a gripping narrative, the reader is also given a high quality history lesson from a man that has obviously done his research. My only (albeit major) complaint with this novel is the ending! It felt like Furst just got tired of writing, and decided to finish the novel in about 50 pages or bust. For a story that was so well set up, thought out, and developed, it was infuriating to get 450 pages into it and then have it so unsatisfyingly concluded. I don't know whether or not this was due to Furst or was the responsiblity of his editor, but the story and the reader were both done a great disservice. But for the ending, this novel would have earned 5 stars, and in spite of it, "Night Soldiers" is still a worthy read. In the future I anticipate hearing the name of Alan Furst spoken with that of Tom Clancy as a master of the spy-thriller genre.
Rating: 
Summary: A Superb Work of Historical Fiction
Review: This novel carries us straight back into the eastern Europe and Balkans of Eric Ambler's great pre-World War II novels, but it then adds a dash of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War, and Paris before and during the war in a tour de force of the hatreds, passions, and random events which spun across Europe from 1934 to 1945. At one level it is a romantic novel of a man who refuses to give up on life despite some brutally hard lessons (including watching his brother being beaten to death as a teenager by fascists in his Bulgarian village and being trained into the Soviet intelligence system at a time of tremendous brutality to ordinary humans). Furst's specialty is the man or woman who is trying to find a way to have a decent breakfast, adequate clothing, and a warm dry room to live in and yet who finds the draw of other people irresistible and the overhanging violence of the era a permanent background against which life is lived. He is able both to make the personal important and yet also to acknowledge the powerful reality of tides that were shaping history and changing lives. Furst is a romantic realist in the best sense of the Americans who fought the Second World War with ferocity and determination for the best of ideals. He is vividly aware that brutality exists and can destroy lives but is unwilling to allow that to crush his spirit or make him less human. The horror exists but it is not definitive as long as humans insist on hope and love. This is a superb work and the kind history classes could use to help their students understand that behind all those facts were warm and passionate people who mattered both individually and in the larger sense of history.
Rating: 
Summary: In the dark of night spies fight dirty wars for Tyrants
Review: This novel has a great start and was shaping up to be the best novel Furst has ever written or probably would right. However his editors absolutuly butchered it and as the novel progresses more and more important aspects of the story are skimmed over, things happen to fast with to little explanation, etc. The ending is horrible, horrible, horrible! Furst was planning on writing a unprecedented historical epic that traced the life of one Bulgarian youth from 1933 to 1945, using Hitler's rise to power and the second world war as his canvass. Furst's character development is amazing, something he does not do in other books, this book is still long, about 500 pages but I think Furst was plannig on making this book something like 1,500 pages. 1933 to 1937 takes about about 300 pages but 1938 to 1945 takes up 200 pages. Furst should go back and write the novel he planned on writing and re release it. This novel is still worth the read however, and I would give the first 200 or so pages 5 stars without question. Furst's main character is a Bulgarian farm boy with no knowlege or understanding of politics whatsover. The political scene in Eastern Europe in 1933 was extremly volitale and dangerous. People had two choices, Hitler and Stalin, Nazism or Communism, Russia or Germany. Once a nation sided with one power or the other the people of that nation had better toe the ideological line of their government if they wanted to stay alive and out of jail. If not they better leave their nation and defect to a nation that supported the other side. Being apolitical was not possible because it aroused suspiscion that you secretly sympathized with the enemy. Bulgaria's elite was siding with Hitler and Nazi Germany while its peasants sided largly with Stalin and the Soviet Union. Recruiters for both sides lobbied nations and their inhabitants for support. Of course Stalin's Soviet agents misled the poor of these nations with fairy tales about the wonderful equality in the Soviet Union. But these Soviet agents did adress issues that were forbidden public discussion in many of these nations. They riled up the poor by examining and attacking the social and economic inequity of these eastern european goverments. Bulgaria was still very much a feudal society at this point and thus provided fertile ground for "Communist" recruiters of Stalin. The main character of Night Soldiers, Nickolas, is drawn into the political malestrom of the times when his brother is foolish enough to laugh at the leader of the local facist party, a landowner and merchant, when he and his comrades stuble on a ritual parade march. The disruption in their cermonal parade is bad enough, but to have some peasant youth laugh at them is more than this fascist leader, Visik, can bear in front of his subordinates. A verbal exchange ensues which leads to a physical confrontation which leads to Nickolas's brother being stomped to death by the entire troup of fascist militia. Nickolas cannot revenge his brother on his own, however when a Soviet recruiting agent appers and begins to assemble the poor in meetings Nickolas is intrigued. He becomes aware of the guerilla cold war that is occuring behind the scenes in Eastern Europe between Communists and Fascists. He belives the lies of this Soviet agent and agrees to go with him to the Soviet Union to start a new life. He is a dead man if he stays in Bulgaria because the Facists have him marked for death. Once in the Soviet Union he realizes that he has merely traded one tyranny for another. He and other young ideological people from Eastern and Central Europe are put through espionage boot camp and trained how to be spies. Loyality to Stalin above all else is ingrained in their minds. Nickolas is only 17 or 18 at the time. He is sucked into the Soviet police state and made to collaberate in atrocities. He proves an apt pupil and has a natural talent for espionage. He is eventually taken under the wing of a NKVD, the precuser to the KGB, agent who makes him his aprrentice. They are sent to Spain to fight agaist Franco and the Germans and from their the story continues. That is all I will give away because to tell any more would be to reveal too much. Suffice to say that the reader sees the European political scene through the eyes of an uniated, naive youth, seeing everything from a fresh perspective clarifies the history of that time. This novel is a tour de force that takes the reader all over Europe and through each stage of the Nazi rise to power and the Soviet response as well as the situation in France. The British also are involved, it becomes apparent to the reader that no goverment in Europe at this time was good, but some were worse than others. The life of a spy in the NKVD is treachorous and exciting but also tragic and depressing. Nickolas trusts no one and for good reason. By telling the tale of Europe from 1933 through 1945 from the perspective of one person Furst humanizes the events and makes them more accessable. He probably should have stopped writing this novel at 1937 or 1938 and released a sequal later rather than try to fit this massive tale into one volume. The last part of the book is pretty bad but I do not think this is Furst's fault.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Writer and a Terrific Story
Review: This novel is extremely well-written--if you like Le Carré, Furst will not disappoint you. The story, about a Bulgarian who becomes a Soviet spy between the world wars, is filled with the ironies of spycraft: how the watchers become watched, and the question of who you can trust is one your life depends on. It is a highly satisfying novel, with well-rounded characters you come to care about a great deal, and a plot you can sink your teeth into. Night Soldiers is the first book I have read by Alan Furst, and when I finished it I immediately went out and bought a bunch more.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Writer and a Terrific Story
Review: This novel is extremely well-written--if you like Le Carré, Furst will not disappoint you. The story, about a Bulgarian who becomes a Soviet spy between the world wars, is filled with the ironies of spycraft: how the watchers become watched, and the question of who you can trust is one your life depends on. It is a highly satisfying novel, with well-rounded characters you come to care about a great deal, and a plot you can sink your teeth into. Night Soldiers is the first book I have read by Alan Furst, and when I finished it I immediately went out and bought a bunch more.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy heir to Le Carre in the literary thriller genre.
Review: Those coming late to the game, like me, are perhaps dimly aware of Alan Furst's prominence, lately, as _the_ World War II spy thriller writer. He's far too young to have any firsthand knowledge of the war, but he spent some of his early life in Paris, a city prominently featured in many of his novels, and he has clearly drank deeply from the well of mid-twentieth century fiction and autobiography. Hemingway, Orwell, Koestler, Solzhenitsyn, certainly, but also, I think, Sholokhov, Sartre, Babel, and other writers who lived through -- or died in -- Europe's cataclysmic struggle with Communism and Fascism: Furst seems to have read them all, digested them and managed to put them back together in a very compelling manner. Night Soldiers follows a young Bulgarian man, Khristo Stoianev, who is recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934. By a stroke of good luck, Khristo takes to the NKVD's training extremely well; his bad luck, though, is to be on hand just as the Stalinist purges get underway. The purges catch up to him in revolution-torn Spain, where he has been dispatched to infiltrate the Republican side. This first section of the novel is absolutely brilliant; Furst's re-creation of Stalinist Moscow and Civil War-era Spain glitter with telling details, and the growing weight of suspicion, betrayal and counter-espionage press on the reader as on Khristo himself, forcing one ahead faster and faster with the novel. Furst's characters are also well-drawn, if rather familiar from the war and espionage novelists of years past: the world-weary Russian spymaster, drinking away his fear; the naive American drawn into a dark world beyond her ken; the jolly Eastern European emigre with a well-worn grudge and a secret plan for revenge. Furst falters somewhat in the later portions of the novel, after Khristo has fled Spain, languished in a Paris jail and joined up with the French Resistance in the struggle against the German occupiers. Here Furst seems to tread water a bit, in particular with the character of an American counterpart to Khristo, similarly drawn into the struggle almost by accident. Things pick up again toward the end, as a last mission draws Khristo -- now in the service of the OSS -- further east, back toward his home, across war-torn Europe. Furst's novels tell the sort of untellable stories that one can only imagine from the obituary pages, as the last survivors of those years silently pass away. And they tell those stories very well, combining genuine literary talent with a gift for drama and suspense -- if the mainstream thriller moves to meet Furst halfway, airport bookstores will be a much better place.
Rating:
Summary: Full Length
Review: To date all the novels of Alan Furst have been issued in the US as soft cover books, and they have generally been briefer than I like. There was even a two book cycle that could have been presented as one. "Night Soldiers", by comparison is a lengthy novel encompassing well over 400 pages and gives the author a much greater opportunity to demonstrate his talents. Mr. Furst's novels generally are described as taking place between 1933-1945, "Night Soldiers", is spread over this entire time frame and a bit more. Much is written about the historical accuracy of the author's work, there is no issue with making such a claim as long as it is valid. Mr. Furst even goes to the point of suggesting historical reading that he uses for his readers to also enjoy, which also reinforces the idea that he is concerned with historical accuracy. Unless the reader has traveled to the cities and countries his books cover, we all must rely on what he tells us as fact. Major historical events can always be checked independently, but the details of day to day living, architecture, and countless other details we must take on faith. In his book, "Red Gold", he made a variety of errors that would not be noticed by most of his readers, and they were largely missed by me as well. Another reviewer shared his thoughts about the book with me, and my faith in Mr. Furst's accuracy was diminished. I don't speak French but those who do will note how poorly he represents the language in the book I mention. Again, in most issues the faults slide by, and some details would probably not be considered worthwhile by many to even note. However when an author places a historical event in the wrong year, there is no excuse, no defense, and credibility is damaged. This damage extends beyond the author to everyone participating in the chain of production of the book. I enjoyed the tale shared in, "Night Soldiers". I am again at the author's mercy for I have never been to most of the countries he has his characters visit prior to and through the end of World War II. Nonetheless it is the most complete work I have read by Mr. Furst as he follows the career of a disillusioned young man, his recruitment by the Russians and the subsequent changes in his sponsors and to varying extent his loyalties. He tends to morph much as the map of the Europe he inhabits changed in a very short number of years. Much of the main characters life is destroyed during the war and he too appears to represent the chaos that much of Eastern Europe survived only to be thrown under another brutal regime, the USSR, when the war came to a close. This work is more complex, in terms of the number of players the author presents, as well as their experiences and relationships. His work is not spy thriller, explosions one moment, and women the next. The cadence of his books are measured and more relaxed in their pace. I do not believe he is the author that John Le Care is, but if you like Le Care's method and manner of unrolling his longer stories I believe you will enjoy this man's as well. As to the accuracy that is continually touted about his work, I would suggest enjoying the work first, if like me you are unfamiliar with the settings and language. If you do find factual error share it with others, for the faith we place in the writers we invest our time and money in should not be taken for granted by giving us reading that is lacking in the very accuracy that is used to promote their work.
Rating:
Summary: The beginning of a first-rate sequence of espionage novels
Review: With "Night Soldiers", Alan Furst began a sequence of espionage novels set in the Europe of the late 1930's and early 1940's. Note that I said "sequence" and not "series". Only two of the six novels published thus far feature the same hero, but all are connected by time and place and the recurrence of certain secondary characters who step from the shadows in various books. Although, perhaps there really is one constant, recurring central character -- the city of Paris. Inevitably, Furst's heroes sooner or later pass through Paris. Alan Furst's greatest skill perhaps lies in his ability to create an all-pervasive sense of Europe caught between the terrors of facism and Stalinism. "Night Soldiers" takes us from Bulgaria to the Soviet Union to Civil War Spain to France to Eastern Europe again. Mostly the story is seen through the eyes of Khristo Stoianev, initially a Bulgarian lad recruited into the Soviet NKVD, eventually a spy, a criminal, and a partisan. The emphasis is not on spy-thriller type "action" (although "Night Soldiers" does contain a healthy dose) as much as it is on covert operational technique (for which Furst's work deserves very high marks for authenticity). It may be that the book is a little overly ambitious, with Stoianev becoming ensnarled into an improbably broad range of events in several countries, but it provides an absorbing portrait of a continent gone mad.
|
