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The Polish Officer (Night Soldiers, #3)

Alan Furst

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Nov 03, 2012 Caroline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was my first Alan Furst book. I’d previously started Night Soldiers but felt it was rather swamped by the amount of historical research, which the author had clearly done.

With ‘The Polish Officer’ I was gripped from the opening paragraph. It begins in Warsaw on the night of 11th September 1939 and you are introduced to Captain Alexander de Milja – an officer of the Polish Military Intelligence and previously a cartographer. The description of de Milja a few pages on is sparse – dark hair, ...more

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Dec 28, 2018 Tony rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adapted-for-film, setting-europe, own-loanable, novels, espionage, war-ww2

Short on plot, this book follows the title character as he leaves his normal life as an army cartographer behind to become a spy and resistance fighter in Nazi-occupied Europe. The book unfolds in a series of acts, starting with his unit's dissolution in late 1939 and his subsequent underground work in Poland. The bulk of the book then describes his work in occupied France before a final brief action in Ukraine. Furst is outstanding at portraying individual assignments and actions, making them c ...more

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Mar 11, 2009 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: espionage, historical-fiction, era-ww2

Through the eyes of de Milja, you see how tense the situation was in 1939 and during WW II. de Milja, a Polish citizen, travels through Europe setting up schemes to resist the Germans. The people who lived in those times were very brave.

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Jan 12, 2008 Jessica rated it really liked it

Shelves: noir, world-war-ii, spy, poland

Furst is inspired when it comes to capturing the mood of ordinary people in war - the crushing fear, the anger, and the tiny shred of hope that never quite goes away.

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