Excellent historical fiction. The main character, Christo, is a teenaged farm boy in Bulgaria seduced into going to the Soviet Union by a Communist visiting his village. This is the story of his life for 11 years. I read it in two days. A good and interesting read. Furst provides a lot of local color. The Russian spy agencies under Stalin appear chilling. A book you will remember.

A well written historical thriller involving Soviet espionage in a great number of European countries from 1934 to the end of the second world war. The characters are interesting, the events are realistic fiction. An absorbing read.

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 send 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 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. (Description from back cover of paperback edition.)

Any review I would write could not do this book justice, but let me try.
This book is about chaos: the chaos of infighting and war. It's about bureaucracy: the bureaucracy of the Germans and the Soviets. Finally, it's about sadness: sadness for those who did not survive; sadness for those of who did survive but will never be the same.

For Harry