I liked the story of Bob Eidenbaugh best. She genuinely cared and I appreciated that. I related to her desire to help make things better, too. She was sad to be leaving France, even though living there had been pure misery for her. She was genuinely scared at what happened, but she put up a brave face, which is how I tend to react. Besides her being an American living in a foreign country, I related to they way she thought about things and felt about things. I liked that he had flaws and I liked that he suffered for them. When he let himself fall in love, it’s used against him. When he hid in France, it tormented him that people were fighting and he wasn’t a part of it. He wasn’t perfect and when he let up, people got hurt. He was dynamic and he also seemed human because of his vices and emotions. His friends were the same way and while they were fun to read about, it’s crazy to think that all of this could happen anywhere in the world. Khristo was able to do things and know things that most men couldn’t and wouldn’t.

The characters seemed a little unbelievable, but I think they have to in a spy novel about Russia.

The author writes beautiful work, he just needs to jump into the plot a bit faster. I was glad to reach the end, which was moderately satisfying, but I can’t forget the slow start. Once I started to be engaged in his story, the book read really fast. I didn’t connect or sympathize with the main character until well over 100 pages in so I didn’t want to read it. Night Soldiers masterfully re-creates the European world of 1934–45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin’s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. A young man is murdered by the local fascists.

Night soldiers books in order