Near the middle of Alan Furst's new novel, ''Dark Voyage,'' Busby Berkeley's 1933 musical ''Footlight Parade'' is screened on the deck of a tramp freighter sailing from Tangier to Lisbon. The projector runs too fast, and the wind off the water distorts the sheet serving as the screen. Not all the crew speak English but they speak the lingua of the movie. It's a fun-house midnight matinee, and a strangely poetic one.

That fast-forwarded film on a flapping screen in front of a polyglot crew could almost be a metaphor for the odd shapes and rhythms Furst has brought to another familiar genre, the World War II espionage thriller. ''Dark Voyage'' is the eighth of his wonderful spy novels, and there are passages that could be passed off as the work of both a meticulous narrative craftsman at the top of his game and a symbolist poet. Flip the book open at random and pull out a sentence: ''A white city, and steep; alleys, souks and cafes, their patrons gathering for love and business as the light faded away''; ''Tile floor, bare wooden tables, a few customers, more than one reading a newspaper with dinner''; ''He had once, in some forgotten port, watched sailors in the Soviet Navy as they smeared paint on with their hands''; ''Black, oval cigarettes with gold rims, and heavy perfume''; ''By then it was very late, the tables mostly deserted, and the propriétaire opened the door for them as they left, letting in the cool April night.'' . . .