Night Soldiers: A Novel

Well written....several locations....treacherous Russians and a brave, resourceful main character. Alan Furst is as good as a writer gets.

I was really hesitant about writing this review. See, I’m a huge fan of Alan Furst and his writing style but when I finished “Night Soldiers” I was actually glad that it wasn’t my first book of his that I read because most likely I wouldn’t be checking out the others had I started with this one.Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad book by all means. It’s well-written and set in countries which aren’t often written about, and Khristo was certainly a refreshing choice for a central hero. However, it’s just not on the same level as Furst’s later books. When I read “Red Gold” or “Hero of France” for instance, I couldn’t turn pages fast enough and couldn’t get enough of the plot. With “Night Soldiers,” I was often getting bored and lost interest in the plot and the characters and almost made myself work my way to the end.The problem that I personally had with it was that the book is simply too long. Too long with too many irrelevant subplots and characters who make their appearance (with a huge backstory) and then disappear without a trace. Had it been shortened to make the prose tighter like in his later books, it would have made a splendid, compelling read. But with too many characters and too big of a period time during which the plot takes place and too many subplots, it became too dragged-out. Another minor criticism is historical inaccuracies which actually surprised me as Furst is usually a master of research and it always shows in his works. The car “Pobieda” driven by the NKVD in the early 1930’s when it came out only in 1946, misspelled “Kubelwagen” which became “Kummelwagen,” Soviet Christmas which the Russians here for some reason celebrated on December 24th when in fact Russian Orthodox Christmas falls on January 7… however, the book was written before Google even existed, so perhaps that’s the reason? All of Furst’s later books are always brilliantly researched so I’ll blame it on that fact.I would still recommend it to all fans of historical fiction genre because it is well-written, and the characters do come alive and are easy to picture before your eyes, and the inner workings of the NKVD are certainly an interesting subject to read about. You won’t be disappointed by different settings or a dialogue, or certain historical events described through the eyes of the characters - the book is good; it’s just not as great as his other works, but I’m sure you’ll still enjoy it.

This is actually a good book, well worth your time. The reason it doesn't quite rate five stars is because it takes forever to read, and by the time you get to the end, you have forgotten how it started. The story is about one young person's adventure through Europe prior to and during the second world war. It covers many years, and along the way you meet many, many people.The best part of this book is the prose. The writing is unique, rather different and more entertaining than that of the average author. Each sentence could be described as "well decorated", with plenty of rarely used adjectives, turns of speech, and sentence constructions. This author writes like some of the better British authors who value correct, descriptive, thought provoking language as much as they value the stories they are telling. It is this writing style that captures your attention from the first page.However, this writing style is also the book's downfall. The sentences are delicious like a really good steak. You take your time and savor each bite, extracting as much flavor as you can, but you find that the steak is really big, and at the end you find you have swallowed too much, and you are relieved when you finally finish it. This means that while the whole book is entertaining and the prose possesses your attention, there is so much detail and so many people that you can't quite recall who is who or where is where when the main character revisits people or places later on.In a nutshell, the book follows a guy from Bulgaria who gets recruited into the Soviet intelligence machine, goes to Moscow, meets some friends for life, gets sent to Spain, goes astray, travels to France, meets a lot more people, gets used, chased, and captured, escapes, fights a war, gets betrayed and rescued by his friends, and finally heads toward home but instead ends up where he never expected to be.There is a ton of adventure here, and the book could easily be broken into two or maybe three separate stories. While reading it you have to balance your pleasure in reading the excellent writing against the need to keep a large number of characters and places in your head. Near the end, like that large steak, you just want to get it over with despite it's being delicious. Nevertheless, I recommend this book. Immediately upon its completion I downloaded the author's next book.

I’m new to Alan Furst. I read Dark Star, which I thought was excellent, and then went immediately into Night Soldiers. The scope of the book is epic; in time, in geography, in the apparent loyalties of its hero. From simple Bulgarian boy to trained officer of Stalin’s NKVD, to republican fighter in the Spanish civil war, to refugee from complexity in Paris, to maquis leader, to functionary for who knows whom in Switzerland, to hybrid agent for NKVD and OSS in Prague and then back to to his homeland on the Danube in the chaos of 1945…..It’s dizzying. In the end, however, the hero’s loyalty is to his small band of friends. And the ending is therefore happy. I’m not sure, still, what to make of this book. It is certainly a tour de force of research and imagination, but is it all too much? Very much worth reading but I’m still not sure whether it’s a great novel or just a thriller. Decide for yourselves.

Although I found the basic journey of the "spy" interesting it was enclosed within a lot of detail of other, subsidiary characters.These characters were not always central to the story yet were detailed as if they were and it made the story flow disjointed and diluted my enjoyment of the book. It seems to be a recent trend to expand on number of pages with unnecessary detail, I like a massive book as much as anyone but it needs to have consistent quality and be relevant.

Sometimes you shouldn't believe the hype. I had read so much praise for.Alan Furst. The new Le Carre, better than Le carre, and other similar bold claims. After reading this, I have to say I don't get it. Firstly the comparison makes no sense.The writing styles based on this book of guest's are very different and although Furst writes with great detail (too much detail in my opinion) but it lacks any kind of spark as far as I am concerned. He obviously writes with great detail and it's interwoven with multiple narrative but ultimately these don't really go anywhere. This book has the tagline "a classic novel of intrigue and suspense. For me, none of those claims ring true. A generous three stars....

I first came across Alan Furst when "Spies of Warsaw" was broadcast on TV. I read "The Polish Officer" as a result and thoroughly enjoyed it. Furst's strength is undoubtedly his ability to evoke time and place. You can really feel the locations and the tensions; I can envisage the costumes, and the characters are interesting and in some cases sympathetic even while carrying out unsavoury actions. In need of something not too demanding to read, I decided to start at the beginning of the Night Soldiers series, and was interested to see this earlier book was somewhat more verbose and complex than the later one I had read. It was also long - not a problem for a fast reader, although if you weren't you might lose the plot at the jumps in place. However, the characters linked them, and it seems to be a Furst trick to imply rather than state in some cases. People are introduced, do things, and then do not reappear and you are left wondering what became of them. I rather like this, but accept that some people might find it irritating. I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series, and have recommended them to like minded friends.

I didn't pick this book because I am into spy thrillers, but rather because I'm interested in both the history of Eastern Europe and World War II, and in that respect Night Soldiers did not disappoint. A sweeping account of the pre-war and war years seen through the eyes of a rebel Bulgarian, Khristo.As a novel, however, I found it unsatisfactory in a number of ways. The pacing is very slow for a thriller, and the book is overlong. The principal character, Khristo, has seen his brother murdered, his belief in Communism shattered, and is in fear of his life from the Soviet secret service. And yet, really, he is quite a bland character. The author does not get inside this man's head to the extent that he could have done and make us really care about him and what happens to him. Minor characters are not well used - appearing long enough to make the reader interested in them, then disappearing again without explanation.There is no real central plot; the book is really a chronicle of Khristo's life during these formative years, and that doesn't a page-turner make. I found the dialogue dull and uninspired - although that may be because the writer was trying to convey the impression that the characters are not speaking in English and avoided idiomatic English in dialogue for that reason.On the plus side, I did like the narrative style. The author's diction is concise, never clunky, and with many a quirky and memorable turn of phrase.