'Get Smart' Goes Hollywood, with Mixed Results

Alan Furst's best-selling spy thrillers (Kingdom of Shadows, Night Shadows, The Polish Officer) play out in the brooding, tumultuous Europe of the pre-World War II years, offering an intimate, insider portrait of an escalating crisis in which the players can't always see the implications of the game. Critic-at-large John Powers explains why he's a fan.

Alan Furst has a new historical spy novel called The Foreign Correspondent. His first one, Night Soldiers, came out in 1988, and he's written eight more since then. Critic at large John Powers, who says he always snaps up a new one, explains Furst's appeal.

Milt Bearden spent 30 years in the CIA. He ran the CIA covert operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, and helped train the Afghan freedom fighters. Bearden also was station chief in Pakistan, Moscow, and Khartoum. He received the CIA highest honor, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Since the Sept. 11th attacks, Bearden has been a frequent commentator on TV and in print. He is also the author of the novel, The Black Tulip: A Novel of War in Afghanistan (paperback, Random House).