Alan Furst

Alan Furst is an American writer known for his spy fiction set in Europe before and during World War II. It is combination of stale beer and martini style. The plots are sinister and fraught with cynicism while at the same time being overlayed by grand descriptions of European culture that are almost poetic at times. The usual theme is of a flawed character caught up in the epic struggle and doing his part.

Works include:
 * Your Day in the Barrel (1976)
 * The Paris Drop (1980)
 * The Caribbean Account (1981)
 * Shadow Trade (1983)

Night Soldiers novels:
 * 1) Night Soldiers (1988)
 * 2) Dark Star (1991)
 * 3) The Polish Officer (1995)
 * 4) The World at Night (1996)
 * 5) Red Gold (1999)
 * 6) Kingdom of Shadows (2000)
 * 7) Blood of Victory (2003)
 * 8) Dark Voyage (2004)
 * 9) The Foreign Correspondent (2006)
 * 10) The Spies of Warsaw (2008)
 * 11) Spies of the Balkans (2010)
 * 12) Mission to Paris (2012)
 * 13) Midnight in Europe (2014)
 * 14) A Hero in France (2016)


 * Anti-Hero: The protagonist is usually this
 * Badass Bookworm: Several characters
 * Big Bad : Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin
 * The Chessmaster: Stuffed to the brim with chessmasters.
 * City of Spies: Every city in Europe.
 * Dirty Communists: Furst's Communists are really creepy.
 * Espionage Tropes
 * The Empire: Russia and Germany
 * The Federation: Britain and France
 * Evil Versus Evil: Dirty Communists and Those Wacky Nazis
 * Gambit Pileup
 * Gay Paree: Honestly, Furst seems to have a crush on Paris.
 * Grey and Black Morality
 * Government in Exile
 * Heroic Neutral: several of the characters start as this
 * La Résistance: the good guys
 * Little Hero, Big War
 * Ruritania: The best way to describe the little countries all about. A lot of them are Balkan or Eastern European countries ruled by petty Glorious Leader s of varying degrees of evilness but seldom really comparable to the Big Bad s.
 * Secret Police: the Gestapo and the NKVD
 * Sacred Hospitality: The village of Sfinto Gheorghe shelters an OSS agent on the lam and in return they dump a feast at their doorstep with a mysterious message of thanks.
 * Techno Babble: Furst fans love his realistic tradecraft.
 * Those Wacky Nazis
 * Ye Goode Olde Days: Furst novels practically drip with nostalgia
 * World War II