The World at Night

“What is engaging [in The World at Night] is the idea of the unintentional secret agent, the amateur who has read Eric Ambler. . . . Casson is mystified and terrified as he is slowly sucked into the vortex. Occupied Paris is . . . skillfully reconstructed by Alan Furst, a writer of talent.”

—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

“[The World at Night] earns a comparison with the serious entertainments of Graham Greene and John le Carré. . . . [G]ripping, beautifully detailed . . . [A]n absorbing glimpse into the moral maze of espionage.”

—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times

“[The World at Night] is the world of Eric Ambler, the pioneering British author of classic World War II espionage fiction. . . . The novel is full of keen dialogue and witty commentary. . . . [T]hrilling.”

—Herbert Mitgang, Chicago Tribune

“Alan Furst . . . has evoked [Paris] so vividly we can smell and taste the city and find our way around like natives. . . . Furst has written an elegant, suspenseful, and—there’s no other word for it—professional novel. Flaubert would have liked it. Balzac would have approved.”

—Anthony Brandt, Men’s Journal

“A wonderfully evocative portrait of wartime Paris and the moral maze of resistance that builds to a brilliant climax.”

—Phillip Knightly, The Mail on Sunday (London)

“First-rate reading—vivid, compelling, and rich with authentic detail about clandestine battles and battlegrounds. No one evokes World War II behind the lines better than Alan Furst does.”

—Geoffrey C. Ward

“[Furst’s] depictions of wartime Europe have the richness and complexity of the fiction of John le Carré and Somerset Maugham. . . . With the authority of solid research and a true fascination for his material, Mr. Furst makes idealism, heroism, and sacrifice believable and real.”

—David Walton, The Dallas Morning News

“Furst’s scrupulous attention to spycraft and period detail . . . evokes the mood of conquered cities like Warsaw, Paris, and Barcelona. . . . Language this lovely vaults the categories we lazily constrain literature with.”

—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

“Some books you read. Others you live. They seep into your dreams and haunt your waking hours until eventually they seem the stuff of memory and experience. Such are the novels of Alan Furst, who uses the shadowy world of espionage to illuminate history and politics with a gripping immediacy.”

—Nancy Pate, The Orlando Sentinel

“Imagine discovering an unscreened espionage thriller from the late 1930s, a classic black-and-white movie that captures the murky allegiances and moral ambiguities of Europe on the brink of war. . . . Nothing can be like watching Casablanca for the first time, but Furst comes closer than anyone has in years.”

—Walter Shapiro, Time

“Furst has somehow discovered the perfect venue for uniting the European literary tragedy with the Anglo-American spy thriller. Nobody does it better.”

—Kirkus Reviews