Alan Furst (born February 20, 1941, http://www.alanfurst.net/) is an American author of historical spy novels. He has been called ‘an heir to the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene’, whom he cites along with Joseph Roth and Arthur Koestler as important influences. Most of his novels since 1988 have been set just prior to or during the Second World War and he is noted for his successful evocations of Eastern European peoples and places during the period from 1933 to 1944. His writing is on a grand scale but furnished with fine authentic detail.
Night Soldiers (1988) transports us to Bulgaria in 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin’s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. This novel masterfully re-creates the European world of 1934–45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. For anyone who enjoys a scrupulously researched historical thriller, this is a treat and a half.
Treat yourself by enquiring at your local library or consult http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Soldiers-Alan-Furst/dp/0753826356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441996796&sr=8-1&keywords=furst+night+soldiers for full bibliographic detail.
512 pages in Weidenfeld and Nicholson
First published 1988
ISBN 978-0753826355
Alan Furst