ALAN FURST'S NIGHT SOLDIERS

Night Soldiers was the 1988 novel in which Alan Furst began to work the territory which through him we now know so well: Europe in the 1930s, in the build up to World War II, and in the early years of that war. It's fascinating because a number of the characters from this book will pop up again – particularly in his next novel Dark Star, but Ilya Goldman recurs four times—but also because this novel is presented in a series of four episodes, starting with the recruitment and training of Bulgarian Khristo Stoianev to the Soviet NKVD, and through the Spanish Civil War, pre-war Paris, and the efforts of the French Resistance during the War. In a sense, it encapsulates all the concerns which would come to define Furst's later works, not least the sense in which putative allies can often be one's worst enemies.

The most successful of the four is called 'Blue Lantern', set during the Spanish Civil War. But for the fact that the back story of some of the characters has been filled in by the previous section, this actually reads like a excellent short story, beginning and ending with the olive trees of San Ximene, a metaphor which works without being overbearing. Of course it isn't self-contained; it has set the stage for the story to move on, and for other characters who will come back, but I found it instructive both as a story and as an indication in just how well Furst makes this episodic approach work.

Furst is often compared to Eric Ambler, and sometimes to Graham Greene, and there is validity in each, but that is more the surface of the stories. When you go underneath, the better comparisons might be to LeCarre, and that is the other thing that makes his writing work. It's the way situations exist in flux; assignments, betrayals, relationships. Stoianev may not be Furst's most-fully delineated character, but that suits the style. His very identity is constantly morphing, his nationality, his allegiances, his dreams. Even the most deep personal anchors turn out to be ephemeral, at least in reality, if not memory or emotion. That is the beauty of Furst's writing, and if this is not the most polished example, it is certainly a many-faceted jewel of a story.

Night Soldiers by Alan Furst

Orion Phoenix (2009) £7.99 ISBN 978-0753826355

FURST WITH THE MOST: SPIES OF WARSAW

The Spies Of Warsaw
Alan Furst
Weidenfeld & Nicholson 16.99
ISBN 9780297855415

'I think you like this kind of war,' Anna Szarbek tells the French military attache Jean-Francois Mercier, who of course is a spy, and this kind of war is of course no real war at all, just preparation for the war which they, in 1937 Warsaw, know is coming inevitably. 'This job has grown into me,' Mercier replies, and that could be the answer Alan Furst might give to the same question. 'This kind of war' has been his subject in nine previous novels, in which time he has recreated the black and white era of Thirties espionage with the precision, the emphasis on subtle shading of mood, the finely judged nuance of a Vermeer. What is particularly telling in this story is the way Mercier is himself made to serve as symbol of both the old, aristocratic Europe which is already in sharp, if ignorant, decline, and which is about to be blown away by Hitler's new world order. His family has a distinguised name, but their estates are in tatters, a metaphor for the nation and the old order.

Germany is preparing for war, and Mercier has spotted, indirectly, the evidence that their attack on France will come with tanks plowing through the Ardennes, something the French high command, secure behind their Maginot Line, regards as unthinkable. Meanwhile, the Nazis are becoming more and more active in Poland, and as they do, Polish intelligence, apart from the admirable Colonel Vyborg, whom Furst's regulars will recall from The Polish Officer, are more concerned with rounding up left-wingers, and protecting themselves from the Russians to their east.

Within Warsaw's world of espionage, and diplomacy, all is more gentlemanly, and Mercier finds himself beginning an affair with Anna, a French lawyer for the League of Nations, by definition a practitioner in an even-greater, more idealistic futility, whose family were Polish Jews. Every action has its ramifications, from the fate of Anna's former lover to the revenge of an SS officer whose kidnap plans in Warsaw Mercier foils. Meanwhile, Furst engages with all types of agents, and their motives, willing and unwilling, desperate or simply adjusting to the changing, and dangerous times. It proceeds at its own pace, the pieces linking tenuously, sometimes not at all, with the inevitability of failure an historical reality which, if anything, adds to the story's foggy atmosphere. More than anyone, Furst recalls Eric Ambler, particularly in the way his spies are often from the business world, motivated by personal greeds, and often people being forced into spying. In both cases, it is difficult to pretend one is engaged in a gentlemanly business.

The conclusion is more problematical, however, as Furst jumps ahead to the start of the war, and mentions that, 'after many adventures' (exactly the line Robert Mitchum uses in voice-over at the end of 'Tombstone'!), Mercier and Anna made their way to London, where they went to work for the French and Polish intelligence services. This suggests a sequel, if not multiple sequels, and even knowing that they make it to Britain, the story of their getting there, in Furst's hands, would not be disappointing.