I recently had a Furst pressed on me by MOTEV (that would be Mother of The Elegant Variation), who quite likes him, having lived through both the time and the place. I, however, found him lacking, frankly and didn't finish it. I found it a bit plodding and workmanlike. But that's just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Oddly enough, I've yet to read Furst, even though he's been raved about to me for some time--especially when his works were out of print in the US and Partners was making a mint off the UK imports. I've heard tell they are perhaps a bit too smooth and slick, and maybe that's why I've shied away to this point.

I'm not a big espionage reader in general, but authors who I really think "get" it in terms of the feel and mood, even if they aren't necessarily spy novels per se, are Dan Fesperman (THE SMALL BOAT OF GREAT SORROWS was one of my five favorite books last year) and Olen Steinhauer, whose two books set in post WWII Eastern Europe already put a great many authors to shame. Also hear really good things about John Lawton and J. Robert Janes as well.

Hmmm...I'd probably go with "highly polished" rather than "smooth and slick." The other thing is that, as he goes along, Furst certainly becomes less and less concerned with the overt plot structure, so that his novels read like an accumulation of events rather than a strict sequence. Which is one of the things I most admire, actually. Another being the willingness to tell WWII stories in which the Americans figure tangentially if at all.

Mark, which one did MOTEV foist on you? Brooke Allen's recommendations aren't that much further from mine, actually, if you were willing to try another.

Thanks for spreading the good word, Beatrice. Perhaps the thing that Furst does for me above all is to evoke the climate of Stalinism with all its paranoia and caprice. Although your readers are surely too highbrow to know what I'm talking about, "The Apprentice" is an unwitting and briliant parody of the purges, with The Donald as Uncle Joe.

Brooke Allen is a she. See her bio (with picture) linked to:

http://www.newcriterion.com/constant/briefbios.htm#

Best,

David