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Bulgaria, 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. Night Soldiers 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. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.
Bulgaria, 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. Night Soldiers 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. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
Chapter One
In Bulgaria, in 1934, on a muddy street in the river town of Vidin, Khristo Stoianev saw his brother kicked to death by fascist militia.
His brother was fifteen, no more than a blameless fool with a big mouth, and in calmer days his foolishness would have been accommodated in the usual ways—a slap in the face for humiliation, a few cold words to chill the blood, and a kick in the backside to send him on his way. That much was tradition. But these were political times, and it was very important to think before you spoke. Nikko Stoianev spoke without thinking, and so he died.
On both sides of the river—Romania to the north and Bulgaria to the south—the political passion ran white hot. People talked of little else: in the marketplace, in the church, even—a mark of just how far matters had progressed—in the kitchen. Something has happened in Bucharest. Something has happened in Sofia.
Soon, something will happen here.
And, lately, they marched.
Torchlight parades with singing and stiff-armed salutes. And the most splendid uniforms. The Romanians, who considered themselves much the more stylish and urbane, wore green shirts and red armbands with blue swastikas on a yellow field. They thrust their banners into the air in time with the drum: we are the Guard of Archangel Michael. See our insignia—the blazing crucifix and pistol.
They were pious on behalf of both symbols. In 1933, one of their number had murdered Ion Duca, the prime minister, as he waited for a train at Sinaia railway station. A splinter group, led by a Romanian of Polish descent named Cornelius Codreanu, called itself the Iron Guard. Not to be outdone by his rivals, Codreanu had recently assassinated the prefect of Jassy “because he favored the Jews.” Political times, it seemed, brought the keenest sort of competitive instincts into play and the passionate reached deep within themselves for acts of great magnitude.
The men of Vidin were not quite so fashionable, but that was to be expected. They were, after all, Slavs, who prided themselves on simplicity and honesty, while their brethren across the river were of Latin descent, the inheritors of a corner of the Roman Empire, fancified, indolent fellows who worshiped everything French and indulged themselves in a passion for the barber, the tailor, and the gossip of the cafés. Thus the Bulgarian marchers had selected for themselves a black and olive green uniform which was, compared with Romanian finery, simple and severe.
Still, though simple and severe, they were uniforms, and the men of Vidin were yet at some pains, in 1934, to explain to the local population how greatly that altered matters.
It was a soft autumn evening, just after dusk, when Nikko Stoianev called Omar Veiko a dog prick. A white mist hung in the tops of the willows and poplars that lined the bank of the river, clouds of swallows veered back and forth above the town square, the beating of their wings audible to those below. The Stoianev brothers were on their way home from the baker’s house. Nikko, being the younger, had to carry the bread.
They were lucky to have it. The European continent lay in the ashes of economic ruin. The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency—showing wise kings and blissful martyrs—while bankers wept and peasants starved. It was, certainly, never quite so bad as the great famines of Asia. No dead lay bloated in the streets. European starvation was rather more cunning and wore a series of clever masks: death came by drink, by tuberculosis, by the knife, by despair in all its manifestations. In...
About the Author-
Alan Furst, widely recognized as the master of the historical spy novel, is the author of Midnight in Europe, Mission to Paris,and numerous other bestsellers. His books have been translated into 18 languages. Born in New York, he spent many years in Paris, and now lives on Long Island.
Reviews-
August 3, 1992 The father of a boy murdered by fascists in a small town in Bulgaria in 1934 embraces Communism and becomes an agent for the Soviets, who assign him to Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. ``Furst shows a remarkable talent in his fifth novel, integrating details about the cultures of Spain, France and Eastern Europe with a fascinating story,'' PW declared .
January 1, 1988 When a small-town Bulgarian landlord, a grocer and their cohorts, decked out in foolish uniforms and caps with goose feathers, hear a village teenager ridicule their march, they do what petty fasciststaking their cue from the no-longer laughable Nazisdid best: they gang up on the boy and kill him. Set in 1934, this evocative, moving novel concerns the travails of the boy's brother, Khristo Stoianev. Khristo, realizing the menace of fascism, takes a risk on the promise of communism and flies east to Moscow, where he becomes a promising agent of the NKVD, predecessor of the KGB. His superiors assign him to Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and Khristo begins to experience the relentlessly cruel, cataclysmic decades of World War II and its aftermath. Furst shows a remarkable talent in his fifth novel, integrating details about the cultures of Spain, France and Eastern Europe with a fascinating story of the constantly changing, constantly unpredictable events of that world at war. Moreover, he is never so carried away by his character's adventures that he fails to accurately depict the true scale of a man's tragic life, a life like that of many who suffered during those terrible years.
The Seattle Times
"A spy novel, a war story, an adventure, a survivor's tale--Night Soldiers is all this and more."
USA Today
"Night Soldiers has everything the best thrillers offer--excitement, intrigue, romance--plus grown-up writing, characters that matter, and a crisp, carefully researched portrait of the period in which our own postwar world was shaped."
Walter Goodman, The New York Times
"Intelligent, ambitious, absorbing . . . The history is deftly incorporated; the viewpoint civilized; the characters and the settings picturesque; the adventures exciting; the writing pungent."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Night Soldiers is an atmospheric journey through turbulent lands at a turbulent time, not so much a thriller as it is a panoramic, historical adventure."
Kirkus Reviews
"Intelligent and absorbing . . . An unusual viewpoint, solid research and unobtrusively elegant writing make this pure pleasure to read."
Publishers Weekly
"Evocative, moving . . . Furst shows a remarkable talent, integrating details about the cultures of Spain, France and Eastern Europe with a fascinating story of the constantly changing, constantly unpredictable events of that world at war."
Thomas Powers, author of The Man Who Kept the Secrets
"One of the very best novels ever written about the inner world of Soviet intelligence. . . . This fine novel, in effect the memoir so many did not live to write for themselves, is a triumph of historical imagination."
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