Furst's great trilogy of espionage and resistance in Europe in the 1930s and during the second World War, Night Soldiers, Dark Star and The Polish Officer, stands as one of the more magnificent literary accomplishments of the past ten years. In these books he has constructed a living tapestry of a time when the whole social fabric was torn asunder, an artistic achievement comparable to, although darker and more brooding than, Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. Now, in The World at Night, he mines similar territory in Paris at the outbreak of hostilities. His protagonist is film director Jean Casson, a man more used to the conspiracy of the bedroom than that of the broader scene of counter-resistance. Nevertheless he is reluctantly conscripted into becoming an agent, an endeavour on his part that is sure to end in disgrace and failure. Furst knows his chosen territory well, his lyrically elliptical prose bringing alive the breath-held terror of the time and place, as his people, the conquerors and the conquered alike, play out their ritualised dance of death. As an example of atmospheric writing on the grand scale, The World at Night is hard to beat.