Rating: 
Summary: "Victor, Please Don't Go to the Underground Meeting Tonight"
Review: Furst's writing is very film aware: As I read THE WORLD AT NIGHT, I felt that I was somewhere in between a prequel to CASABLANCA and one of Marcel Carné's 1930s celluloid evocations of despair, such as QUAI DES BRUMES. I was also conscious that Furst did a creditable job bringing to life a time and place we all knew mostly from the movies. Of course, a film adaptation of this novel would probably garner an R-rating, what with its hero's richly textured sex life.Jean Casson plays a small-time movie producer who has to learn how to shift for himself under the Nazi occupation of France. On the way, he not only falls in love with the hot starlet Citrine, but simultaneously acts as an agent for the Boche and the Resistance. Furst's Gestapo officers come across as unexpectedly tolerant and even bemused -- except when they are crossed. Ach, these French! Why can't they understand that we are only trying to help them? Lieutenant Colonel Guske of the SS in particular is sketched in with admirable restraint. My only problem with an otherwise wildly entertaining read is that Casson's escape from Gestapo headquarters at the end is just a bit too pat. With his strength at setting the mood and his aptitude for interesting and very French characterizations, Furst could have sacrificed some of the derring-do at the end without sacrificing the sense of the story. I first heard of the author on a National Public Radio broadcast while driving to the library. Within hours, I was congratulating myself for having found another interesting new writer.
Rating:
Summary: "Victor, Please Don't Go to the Underground Meeting Tonight"
Review: Furst's writing is very film aware: As I read THE WORLD AT NIGHT, I felt that I was somewhere in between a prequel to CASABLANCA and one of Marcel Carné's 1930s celluloid evocations of despair, such as QUAI DES BRUMES. I was also conscious that Furst did a creditable job bringing to life a time and place we all knew mostly from the movies. Of course, a film adaptation of this novel would probably garner an R-rating, what with its hero's richly textured sex life. Jean Casson plays a small-time movie producer who has to learn how to shift for himself under the Nazi occupation of France. On the way, he not only falls in love with the hot starlet Citrine, but simultaneously acts as an agent for the Boche and the Resistance. Furst's Gestapo officers come across as unexpectedly tolerant and even bemused -- except when they are crossed. Ach, these French! Why can't they understand that we are only trying to help them? Lieutenant Colonel Guske of the SS in particular is sketched in with admirable restraint. My only problem with an otherwise wildly entertaining read is that Casson's escape from Gestapo headquarters at the end is just a bit too pat. With his strength at setting the mood and his aptitude for interesting and very French characterizations, Furst could have sacrificed some of the derring-do at the end without sacrificing the sense of the story. I first heard of the author on a National Public Radio broadcast while driving to the library. Within hours, I was congratulating myself for having found another interesting new writer.
Rating: 
Summary: horrible
Review: i could only read half this book before tossing it --just bad!!!!
no suspense no characters you can care about-no plot-
i think i could write a better book.
and filled with foul words and sex scenes(not too graphic but constant)save your money
Rating:
Summary: The Nightmare Years
Review: I have read several of Furst's novels and they are all very good, particularly in evoking the atmosphere of sheer terror that pervaded Europe between 1933 and 1945 - though he might extend the streak beyond 1945 to cover the early, horrific years of the cold war. I have only one suggestion: that for his future novels he should get a good French copy-editor. He makes a great many mistakes in French. These are novels, so it's a venal sin, but it detracts from his claims to authenticity to write, for instance, 'monsieurs et madames'. I'll send him a list of mistakes in this book, if he wants.
Rating: 
Summary: Great writing supports a thin story
Review: I recently discovered Alan Furst and consider him one of the best period novelists writing today. I read "Kingdom of Shadows" first, which was excellent, and came to this novel with great expectations. While Furst again delivers rich characterization and the ominous atmosphere of German-occupied Paris, I felt the story did not rise to the level of the word craft. The main character is complex but is so detached and unopinionated that I found myself not caring about him or the choices that he made. His ennui soon became mine as I soldiered on reading this novel, waiting for something to happen. A hokey escape sequence followed by a maudlin ending left me disappointed. Looking back, I realize that I came to this book for a spy story and on that basis this novel fails; however, had I come to it to experience what France must have been like under Nazi occupation, then I would rate this book is a smashing success.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing supports a thin story
Review: I recently discovered Alan Furst and consider him one of the best period novelists writing today. I read "Kingdom of Shadows" first, which was excellent, and came to this novel with great expectations. While Furst again delivers rich characterization and the ominous atmosphere of German-occupied Paris, I felt the story did not rise to the level of the word craft. The main character is complex but is so detached and unopinionated that I found myself not caring about him or the choices that he made. His ennui soon became mine as I soldiered on reading this novel, waiting for something to happen. A hokey escape sequence followed by a maudlin ending left me disappointed. Looking back, I realize that I came to this book for a spy story and on that basis this novel fails; however, had I come to it to experience what France must have been like under Nazi occupation, then I would rate this book is a smashing success.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb evocation of Paris at the eve of World War II.
Review: I've read all of Alan Furst's books at least three times, except for "World at Night" (which has been out only long enough for one pass)."World at Night" is the fourth of Furst's novels set in Europe before and during World War II. Furst lived in Europe the last few years, reading obscure tracts, diaries, and memoirs of Europeans who survived the war -- spies, peddlers, minor diplomats, -- whomever.The remarkable tone captured in these novels is the result. "Night Soldiers" accompanied me to Spain, and should be read by anyone who wants an additional sense of the Spanish Civil War beyond "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "Homage to Catalonia." "World at Night" has the weakest ending of the four World War II books, in my opinion, but it is still superb. It is reminiscent of ReMarque's novels set in pre-war Paris. I liked Furst's early books, too -- "Your Day in the Barrel" and its sequel (which for some reason Amazon does not list). A warning, however -- these early books are REALLY different from the latter ones, so appreciation of the World War II novels is no guarantee that you'll like these others. If you liked Donald Westlake's early comic/suspense novels like "Fugitive Pigeon," then you'll like the early Fursts.
Rating: 
Summary: ANOTHER GEM FROM THE GREATEST OF OUR TIME
Review: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ALAN FURST, YOU HAVE MISSED OUT ON PERHAPS THE FINEST AUTHOR OF THE MODERN ERA. MR FURST TRANSPORTS THE READER BACK TO MID-CENTURY EUROPE AND MAKES CLEAR THE COMPLICATED EVENTS AND PEOPLE OF THAT TIME. ALL THIS AND CHARACTORS WHOM YOU WILL NOT EVER FORGET.
Rating:
Summary: German Occupation - Vivid Portrait of Paris, 1940
Review: In the carefully researched novels by Alan Furst we encounter men and women facing extraordinary situations, individuals overwhelmed by historical events. The World at Night makes good reading and offers an intriguing look at France during the first year of occupation. Jean Claude Casson, a producer of moderately successful movies, is awakened by news that German forces are attacking. Within days he is conscripted into military service and engaged in filming a documentary on the front line. The French forces crumble and Casson becomes part of the chaotic retreat. This rapid collapse of France is followed by German occupation. Furst paints a vivid picture of winter 1940-41 in Paris, a remarkably cold winter, made worse by severe food and fuel shortages. Casson survives, but faces the moral dilemma inherent to all living under military occupation. What activities are just and what activities constitute collaboration with the enemy? Casson reluctantly agrees to carry money into Spain for the Resistance. We travel with him, unprepared for contingencies, essentially naive. With each step Casson is closer to disaster. He survives again, but only to become entangled with German counter espionage efforts. Jean Claude Casson was not completely satisfactory as a protagonist. He wanders erratically from one woman to another, a behavior shared by key characters in other stories by Alan Furst. His rather sudden deepening love for Citrine was a critical turning point in the plot, but was not entirely convincing. I consequently found the ending abrupt and somewhat implausible. Despite this reservation, I highly recommend The World at Night. Alan Furst has created a fascinating portrait of wartime France, not the typical picture of resistance fighters destroying bridges, but a more authentic examination of life under occupation. The World at Night is good history as well as entertaining reading.
Rating:
Summary: Another gem from Furst
Review: Once again, Alan Furst has brilliantly taken us back into the 1930s and 1940s, this time to Paris in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi Germany invasion. The protagonist, a film producer who initially thinks life can continue as normal, takes us step by step through the transition from sadness to resentment to anger to resistance against a brutal occupying force.
Furst's real achievement in this novel is taking the mundane and the normal and weaving them into the difficult and violent world of war and occupation. Everyday experiences like eating, drinking, earning a living, loving and talking are the primary daily behaviors around which the characters interact, but they are all intruded upon by the occupation. This is what makes the book so "real."
Furst combines history, fiction, and the mysteries of espionage as well as anyone since Eric Ambler. He is always worth reading.
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