I first read espionage novelist Alan Furst several years ago, after repeated exposure to print reviews and hearing about him on NPR. I read his first novel, the amazing World War II espionage epic Night Soldiers. I was already a casual fan of espionage fiction, though my Eric Ambler collection was still only a small pile.

Night Soldiers is a gripping and evocative epic that spans Europe from the mid-1930s to 1945, from Bulgaria to Russia and from Spain to France. It tells intertwining stories of resistance to the Nazi conquest with both superb research and a redolent style to draw an absorbing, atmospheric portrait of life in the anti-Nazi-Fascist underground. It pays  close attention to the moral and life-or-death quandaries that the fighters of that era faced. It's a real tour de force and after that, my interest in the genre deepened significantly. Night Soldiers remains my favorite of his novels that I've read so far.

Among my eccentric reading habits is that I often read an author in order of composition, if possible, and so I've only just finished his fourth novel, The World at Night (Random House; 1996). Compared to the first three novels, The World at Night is a more low-key and romantic narrative. As in Eric Ambler's novels, its protagonist is not some wooden super-professional spy, but a successful French film producer and glib, freewheeling ladies' man named Jean Casson. Like many Frenchman at the time--and people all over, I suspect--he initially reacts to the Nazi blitzkrieg by putting his head down and hoping Hitler will go away. Later on, he's called up to join the French Army to repulse the German invasion, which, if you've ever paid attention to history, you know turned into an insane rout.

Chastened and horrified by what he's witnessed, Jean returns to Paris and attempts to return to his carefree life and work as a film producer, a nearly impossible task as the German occupation and its intelligence services cast their brute sordid shadow in every corner of Parisian life. Jean's carefree world view is challenged when he's slowly drawn into the French Resistance as he reignites an old romance with a famous Dietrich-like actress named Citrine. He's sent out on a mission that goes wrong in a most surprising way. And once he's crossed that line, he finds there's no way back, especially once German intelligence comes knocking.

World at Night is a slower-moving work that meanders like a mainstream novel more concerned with life as it was lived in World War II Paris. The writing is both lovely and offbeat, sometimes slipping into a staccato style that Furst often employs to evoke, I would guess, a certain Parisian savoir-faire. The ending, while reflecting Jean's romanticism, feels abrupt and hurried. Enough so to make me wonder if I will encounter Monsieur Casson and his Citrine again in a later novel. Yes or no, I'll be looking.

Perhaps more surprising is the lack of attention paid to Furst's work by film producers. Night Soldiers, for one, would make great cable miniseries. During a recent appearance in Berkeley, Furst mentioned some interest by HBO in The Polish Officer (another excellent novel).

Thomas Burchfield's contemporary Dracula novel Dragon's Ark will be published March 2011 by Ambler House Publishing. His essays and blog entries can be read at The Red Room website for writers. He can also be followed on Facebook and Twitter.