The real asset of this novel is showing how complicated things were in Europe right before the Second World War. It is perhaps one of the IIWW Furst books I personally like the best. Where to escape? His Jewish background and tell-tale physique is not helping either, especially in the Nazi Germany of 1939… From a state-approved journalist and a protected, even cajoled spy he turns into a fugitive. From that time he knows he must expect sudden death at hands of his own compatriots, people he was supposed to trust. Soon enough one faction of Soviet agents try to kill Szara – he is saved in the last possible moment, almost miraculously, by another faction. He manages to dupe his superiors for some time, they even upgrade him to a deputy director of the Paris network, but it doesn’t last long.

Andre hides the documents behind a painting he buys for that very reason and pretends there was nothing interesting inside the briefcase.

In hands of wrong people these handwritten reports might cause a lot of damage to that person, even have him publicly disgraced and killed. The identity of that agent seems to indicate a high rank Soviet dignitary, now in a position of power. After studying them minutely, however, he knows that something is horribly wrong. When Szara retrieves and opens it he finds old documents written by a Russian and a fellow spy, probably the agent of famous Ohrana, the secret service of the Tzars. One day he is charged with finding a briefcase another agent had by his person right before his sudden demise in an obscure hotel. Officially he is writing about the conditions of labourers in different countries unofficially he is also used by the NKVD as a minor spy, given mundane, less important or less dangerous tasks. It features Andre Szara, a Polish Jew with a Russian passport, a stalwart Communist employed as a journalist of Pravda.

The book is set in Europe right before and during the Second World War – mostly in Germany but also in France, Soviet Union, Poland and Switzerland.

Night soldiers book review