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. ( )

Exciting, well plotted thriller ( )

Night Soldiers is a classic espionage story that takes place just prior to and during WWII. It is the story of a young Bulgarian trained by the Soviets as a spy. It is a tale of intrigue, double cross, suspicion and love--all things that go into a good espionage story. The book follows Khristo Stoianev and a cast of characters through the Spanish Civil War, through Europe, across the ocean to the US and back again to Europe. It tells of the French resistance, the Stalinist purges, the beginnings of the OSS and much more in a very convoluted web.

The story is fascinating, but at times the book seems to drag. For the most part, the main character is a pawn of various forces, but in the end, he comes into his own and makes the journey he has to make.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy an espionage thriller without the common blood and gore that seems too often to take the place of good plot and good story telling. ( )

Khristo Stoianev is the protagonist of this novel about the years before World War II. He is a Bulgarian, growing up as a fisherman working the Danube. He is about 18 when his brother is beaten to death by a Fascist troop in his home town, and Khristo is thereby recruited into the Soviet NKVD as a spy. The first long part of the book is about his training in Arbat Street in the methods of spycraft, and the formation, among his companions, of a brotherhood that will tie together the plot through the sections that follow. Soianev is sent to Spain during the Civil War, but escapes the purges when one of his brotherhood warns him of his arrest, lives in Paris and is peripherally involved in a killing by Bulgarian emigres, and is sent to prison at the behest of British secret service. He is released by another of the brotherhood, joins the resistance and is smuggled out of France to Switzerland by the Americans. Sent back to Prague as a spy, he finally learns of a defection and enlists the aid of the Americans to exfiltrate the NKVD spy. The novel is always literate, well paced, with believable characters and interesting historical comments. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I will look for some of his other works, such as "Dark Star" ( )