Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "french-resistance"
Book Review: Merlin at War by Mark Ellis
Merlin at War (A DCI Frank Merlin Novel)
Mark Ellis
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: London Wall Publishing (October 12, 2017)
ISBN-10:0995566712
ISBN-13:978-0995566712
https://www.amazon.com/Merlin-War-DCI...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley britton
Merlin at War is the third novel to feature Anglo-Spanish DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Frank Merlin of Scotland Yard. As with the previous two books (Princes Gate, Stalin’s Gold), Mark Ellis’s new whodoneit is set in England during World War II. To date, the series has been successful overseas, especially in England and Australia; Merlin at War is Ellis’s first attempt to crack into the American market.
But mystery fans, don’t expect Merlin at War to be a detective procedural with Merlin following a series of clues to uncover a murderer. The novel is more layered and complex than any one plotline. In fact, there are long sections where Merlin isn’t onstage at all and a number of events seem unrelated to the death of a botched abortion victim Merlin is investigating. World War II is more than an atmospheric backdrop. In fact, the book opens with a deadly mission by British soldiers in Crete during 1941. One survivor of a six man unit gunned down by Nazi planes is asked by his superior officer to deliver a letter for him, but the officer dies before he can do more than scrawl a single “S” on the envelope. That’s the book’s first mystery—who is the letter’s intended recipient and what is in it? Does it have anything to do with the dead man’s very remunerative business holdings? Does it reverse previous wills giving his son command of the business?
During the many pages of this unfolding storyline, and the three cases Merlin undertakes, we also meet many French characters on both sides of the battle lines, including spies and traitors. They represent those supporting a Free France and those willing to appease the Vichy government. These figures include the historical Charles de Gaulle and a French emigre shot in a seedy Notting Hill flat. Along the way, the deep cast of main characters are shown in Ireland, Buenos Aires, New York, occupied France, and especially London while the city was being bombed during the blitz.
Ellis is extremely good at providing the details and descriptions that give credible verisimilitude to his various overlapping stories. This is most evident in all the conversations that include reactions to the progress, or lack thereof, of the war, the political dynamics between the likes of de Gaulle and Churchill, the domestic relationships of a number of the protagonists, and the interviews Merlin’s team conducts as they investigate a number of seemingly unrelated murders in London. We are also taken to many night spots, hotels, offices, and restaurants, again mostly in London.
Without question, Merlin at War should please fans of espionage thrillers, mysteries, period dramas, and especially buffs of historical fiction set during the Second World War. Through it all, I often thought this novel would make for an excellent PBS mini-series. True, we already got the WW II set Foyle’s War which was primarily set on England’s south coast. Merlin at War has a wider canvas and is centered in the more cosmopolitan London.
Dear publisher: when you work on releasing Princes Gate and Stalin’s Gold in the U.S., please keep me in mind. I’d love to read and review the first adventures of Frank Merlin and his compatriots. Oh, and book four as well, whenever it comes out.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 3, 2017
http://dpli.ir/NM2L02
Mark Ellis
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: London Wall Publishing (October 12, 2017)
ISBN-10:0995566712
ISBN-13:978-0995566712
https://www.amazon.com/Merlin-War-DCI...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley britton
Merlin at War is the third novel to feature Anglo-Spanish DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Frank Merlin of Scotland Yard. As with the previous two books (Princes Gate, Stalin’s Gold), Mark Ellis’s new whodoneit is set in England during World War II. To date, the series has been successful overseas, especially in England and Australia; Merlin at War is Ellis’s first attempt to crack into the American market.
But mystery fans, don’t expect Merlin at War to be a detective procedural with Merlin following a series of clues to uncover a murderer. The novel is more layered and complex than any one plotline. In fact, there are long sections where Merlin isn’t onstage at all and a number of events seem unrelated to the death of a botched abortion victim Merlin is investigating. World War II is more than an atmospheric backdrop. In fact, the book opens with a deadly mission by British soldiers in Crete during 1941. One survivor of a six man unit gunned down by Nazi planes is asked by his superior officer to deliver a letter for him, but the officer dies before he can do more than scrawl a single “S” on the envelope. That’s the book’s first mystery—who is the letter’s intended recipient and what is in it? Does it have anything to do with the dead man’s very remunerative business holdings? Does it reverse previous wills giving his son command of the business?
During the many pages of this unfolding storyline, and the three cases Merlin undertakes, we also meet many French characters on both sides of the battle lines, including spies and traitors. They represent those supporting a Free France and those willing to appease the Vichy government. These figures include the historical Charles de Gaulle and a French emigre shot in a seedy Notting Hill flat. Along the way, the deep cast of main characters are shown in Ireland, Buenos Aires, New York, occupied France, and especially London while the city was being bombed during the blitz.
Ellis is extremely good at providing the details and descriptions that give credible verisimilitude to his various overlapping stories. This is most evident in all the conversations that include reactions to the progress, or lack thereof, of the war, the political dynamics between the likes of de Gaulle and Churchill, the domestic relationships of a number of the protagonists, and the interviews Merlin’s team conducts as they investigate a number of seemingly unrelated murders in London. We are also taken to many night spots, hotels, offices, and restaurants, again mostly in London.
Without question, Merlin at War should please fans of espionage thrillers, mysteries, period dramas, and especially buffs of historical fiction set during the Second World War. Through it all, I often thought this novel would make for an excellent PBS mini-series. True, we already got the WW II set Foyle’s War which was primarily set on England’s south coast. Merlin at War has a wider canvas and is centered in the more cosmopolitan London.
Dear publisher: when you work on releasing Princes Gate and Stalin’s Gold in the U.S., please keep me in mind. I’d love to read and review the first adventures of Frank Merlin and his compatriots. Oh, and book four as well, whenever it comes out.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 3, 2017
http://dpli.ir/NM2L02
Book Review: D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose
D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
Sarah Rose
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1st Edition (April 23, 2019)
ISBN-10: 045149508X
ISBN-13: 978-0451495082
https://www.amazon.com/D-Day-Girls-Re...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
With D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose has provided us with a valuable service not only in terms of setting the historical record straight for the women of the S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive), but for the history of the treatment of women in general even when they gave their countries the very finest in the way of self-sacrifice, courage, and heroism.
The stories of three women saboteurs , in particular, demonstrate just what skilled and brave women contributed during the occupation of France by the Nazis from 1939 to 1945. We are told about scrappy Andrée Borrel, a demolitions expert eluding the Gestapo while blowing up the infrastructure the occupying German army relied on. The "Queen" of the S.O.E. was Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent Parisian who lost everything due to her wartime service. And there was my favorite heroine of the bunch, Odette Sansom, who saw S.O.E. service as a means to lead a more meaningful life away from an unhappy marriage. While she finds love with a fellow agent named Peter Churchill, she ended up being a two year prisoner, horribly tortured by the Germans. These women, along with their compatriots both male and female, helped lay the groundwork for D-Day by innumerable acts of sabotage, orchestrated prison breaks, and the gathering of intelligence for the allied war effort.
But D-Day Girls has a much deeper and wider canvas that three biographies. The stories of the three spies are painted against a detailed backdrop that includes the policy making of the Allies leadership, how the chiefs of the S.O.E. came to involve women in their behind-the-lines operations, and how the changes in the war effort shaped what the various operatives were and were unable to accomplish. We learn about their training, the reactions of male superiors to the use of women at all, the bungles as well as the successes, the very human dramas the women became involved in, the competition between the various intelligence agencies, how the spy networks were unraveled by the successful Nazi infiltration, and the very vivid settings from which the women operated. We learn about the costly mistakes some operatives performed, the lack of following the procedures they were taught, and the process of getting the materials and new agents parachuted in from RAF planes.
Rose is able to avoid a dry retelling of all these events with almost a novelist's descriptive eye. For example, she doesn't merely tell us about an explosion resulting from a well-place bomb--she gives us a sensory breakdown of what happened moment by moment, second by second in color, smell, and sound. She doesn't merely tell us about the black parachute drops, but how they took place out in the quiet French countryside.
It's difficult to lay this book down as we revisit often forgotten corners of World War II history with often fresh perspectives. Many revelations are only possible now that many formerly classified documents have been brought to light and many misogynist points-of-view have been replaced by what actually happened.
In many ways, the tales of what happened to these women after the war ended are the saddest passages in the book. Because they were not part of any official military service, they were denied the full recognition and appreciation they deserved. Even though they had been indispensable during the war, after VE day they were relegated to the second-class status of women everywhere. There's more than one lesson in all that.
So readers who love spy stories, those interested in World War II, devotees of women's studies, and those focused on D-Day celebrations this year shouldn't be the only audience D-Day Girls should enjoy. It's a wonderfully vivid and descriptive multi-layered account that should engage any reader who likes well-written non-fiction.
Note: I'm aware that this year, a related book, Madame Foucade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Larges Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson was also published. It's on my summer reading list as well. Spy buffs, stay tuned--
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
Sarah Rose
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1st Edition (April 23, 2019)
ISBN-10: 045149508X
ISBN-13: 978-0451495082
https://www.amazon.com/D-Day-Girls-Re...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
With D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose has provided us with a valuable service not only in terms of setting the historical record straight for the women of the S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive), but for the history of the treatment of women in general even when they gave their countries the very finest in the way of self-sacrifice, courage, and heroism.
The stories of three women saboteurs , in particular, demonstrate just what skilled and brave women contributed during the occupation of France by the Nazis from 1939 to 1945. We are told about scrappy Andrée Borrel, a demolitions expert eluding the Gestapo while blowing up the infrastructure the occupying German army relied on. The "Queen" of the S.O.E. was Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent Parisian who lost everything due to her wartime service. And there was my favorite heroine of the bunch, Odette Sansom, who saw S.O.E. service as a means to lead a more meaningful life away from an unhappy marriage. While she finds love with a fellow agent named Peter Churchill, she ended up being a two year prisoner, horribly tortured by the Germans. These women, along with their compatriots both male and female, helped lay the groundwork for D-Day by innumerable acts of sabotage, orchestrated prison breaks, and the gathering of intelligence for the allied war effort.
But D-Day Girls has a much deeper and wider canvas that three biographies. The stories of the three spies are painted against a detailed backdrop that includes the policy making of the Allies leadership, how the chiefs of the S.O.E. came to involve women in their behind-the-lines operations, and how the changes in the war effort shaped what the various operatives were and were unable to accomplish. We learn about their training, the reactions of male superiors to the use of women at all, the bungles as well as the successes, the very human dramas the women became involved in, the competition between the various intelligence agencies, how the spy networks were unraveled by the successful Nazi infiltration, and the very vivid settings from which the women operated. We learn about the costly mistakes some operatives performed, the lack of following the procedures they were taught, and the process of getting the materials and new agents parachuted in from RAF planes.
Rose is able to avoid a dry retelling of all these events with almost a novelist's descriptive eye. For example, she doesn't merely tell us about an explosion resulting from a well-place bomb--she gives us a sensory breakdown of what happened moment by moment, second by second in color, smell, and sound. She doesn't merely tell us about the black parachute drops, but how they took place out in the quiet French countryside.
It's difficult to lay this book down as we revisit often forgotten corners of World War II history with often fresh perspectives. Many revelations are only possible now that many formerly classified documents have been brought to light and many misogynist points-of-view have been replaced by what actually happened.
In many ways, the tales of what happened to these women after the war ended are the saddest passages in the book. Because they were not part of any official military service, they were denied the full recognition and appreciation they deserved. Even though they had been indispensable during the war, after VE day they were relegated to the second-class status of women everywhere. There's more than one lesson in all that.
So readers who love spy stories, those interested in World War II, devotees of women's studies, and those focused on D-Day celebrations this year shouldn't be the only audience D-Day Girls should enjoy. It's a wonderfully vivid and descriptive multi-layered account that should engage any reader who likes well-written non-fiction.
Note: I'm aware that this year, a related book, Madame Foucade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Larges Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson was also published. It's on my summer reading list as well. Spy buffs, stay tuned--
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
Book Review: Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson
Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler
Lynne Olson
Hardcover:464 pages
Publisher: Random House (March 5, 2019)
ISBN-10:0812994760
ISBN-13:978-0812994766
https://www.amazon.com/Madame-Fourcad...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
I picked up my copy of Madame Fourcade's Secret War at the same time I read Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II. After all, both books were published only a month apart, perfectly timed to reach readers interested in this summer's 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. I admit a unique motive. I wanted to troll for details I could use in a spy story I'm working on set on a different planet dominated by women engaged in a brutal war.
I easily got my money's worth from both titles. For readers with more normal inclinations, I can recommend Madame Fourcade's Secret War just as enthusiastically as I did D-Day Girls earlier this month.
While there's obvious overlap in context and setting, these two explorations of women spies travel very different roads. D-Day Girls focuses on female members of the S.O.E., the Special Operations Executive. Madame Fourcade didn't work for the S.O.E. but instead headed an independent network called "Alliance" that reported to England's MI6. Sabotage wasn't Fourcade's main purpose, gathering intelligence was.
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was a complex woman battling her way through a man's world. She built up the Alliance network, especially clandestine radio operators and couriers, then rebuilt it again after the Gestapo gutted Alliance operations and rebuilt it again and again after dangerous duels with the Gestapo. Much of her time, Fourcade lived like a fugitive on the run using various aliases and disguises. Some of her most interesting adventures included harrowing escapes from German prisons.
Some readers are likely going to turn a sour eye on Fourcade due to her very non-maternal treatment of her children. At the onset of the war, she had two youngsters who she quickly had flee to Switzerland without her. During the war, she bore another baby she entrusted to caretakers and went years at a time without seeing any of them. According to Olson, Fourcade had little to say on this in her 1972 memoir, Noah's Ark, but expressed grief for many of the agents she worked with or recruited who didn't survive the war. Her post-war children would later say their mother was never especially maternal. Instead, her Alliance members would be her family until her death in 1989.
It's important to know the Allies learned about the V2 rocket due to the Alliance network and the Normandy invasion was greatly facilitated due to their intelligence. Alliance was the longest lasting and most successful resistance network in France even if Fourcade wasn't destined to earn all the credit she deserved, thanks largely to murky French politics and good ole sexism.
If you're interested in French-set World War II stories, spy stories, or women's studies, like D-Day Girls, this biography is well worth your time. It centers on the legacy of one woman but it also includes the tales of some of the more important Alliance leaders, the ways of espionage in the era, as well as painting what life was like in occupied France.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 25, 2019:
https://waa.ai/3uLD
My review of Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls was first published at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
Lynne Olson
Hardcover:464 pages
Publisher: Random House (March 5, 2019)
ISBN-10:0812994760
ISBN-13:978-0812994766
https://www.amazon.com/Madame-Fourcad...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
I picked up my copy of Madame Fourcade's Secret War at the same time I read Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II. After all, both books were published only a month apart, perfectly timed to reach readers interested in this summer's 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. I admit a unique motive. I wanted to troll for details I could use in a spy story I'm working on set on a different planet dominated by women engaged in a brutal war.
I easily got my money's worth from both titles. For readers with more normal inclinations, I can recommend Madame Fourcade's Secret War just as enthusiastically as I did D-Day Girls earlier this month.
While there's obvious overlap in context and setting, these two explorations of women spies travel very different roads. D-Day Girls focuses on female members of the S.O.E., the Special Operations Executive. Madame Fourcade didn't work for the S.O.E. but instead headed an independent network called "Alliance" that reported to England's MI6. Sabotage wasn't Fourcade's main purpose, gathering intelligence was.
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was a complex woman battling her way through a man's world. She built up the Alliance network, especially clandestine radio operators and couriers, then rebuilt it again after the Gestapo gutted Alliance operations and rebuilt it again and again after dangerous duels with the Gestapo. Much of her time, Fourcade lived like a fugitive on the run using various aliases and disguises. Some of her most interesting adventures included harrowing escapes from German prisons.
Some readers are likely going to turn a sour eye on Fourcade due to her very non-maternal treatment of her children. At the onset of the war, she had two youngsters who she quickly had flee to Switzerland without her. During the war, she bore another baby she entrusted to caretakers and went years at a time without seeing any of them. According to Olson, Fourcade had little to say on this in her 1972 memoir, Noah's Ark, but expressed grief for many of the agents she worked with or recruited who didn't survive the war. Her post-war children would later say their mother was never especially maternal. Instead, her Alliance members would be her family until her death in 1989.
It's important to know the Allies learned about the V2 rocket due to the Alliance network and the Normandy invasion was greatly facilitated due to their intelligence. Alliance was the longest lasting and most successful resistance network in France even if Fourcade wasn't destined to earn all the credit she deserved, thanks largely to murky French politics and good ole sexism.
If you're interested in French-set World War II stories, spy stories, or women's studies, like D-Day Girls, this biography is well worth your time. It centers on the legacy of one woman but it also includes the tales of some of the more important Alliance leaders, the ways of espionage in the era, as well as painting what life was like in occupied France.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 25, 2019:
https://waa.ai/3uLD
My review of Sarah Rose's D-Day Girls was first published at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
Book Review: A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Sonia Purnell
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Viking (April 9, 2019)
ISBN-10: 073522529X
ISBN-13: 978-0735225299
https://www.amazon.com/Woman-No-Impor...
This summer turned out to be my unexpected exploration into female participants in the French resistance during World War II. It began when I read D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose as well as Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson. Now, I've read a long-overdue, in-depth biography of American spy Virginia Hall by Sonia Purnell. I must concur with all the other complimentary reviewers who gave this history five star reviews.
I first read a short but very complimentary biography of Virginia Hall in Emily Yellen'sOur Mother's War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II (2004). In fact, Hall was the premiere lady spy in Yellen's overview that only glancingly looked at behind-the-lines operatives in France. Of course, Purnell's tome reaches far beyond the sort of general information Yellen had access to.
Purnell's years of research is an impressive achievement considering the gaps in available files and the likelihood many of Hall's exploits were never recorded by anyone. Part of this oversight is likely based on the reality Hall's labors were so clandestine there was every reason not to keep files on her work. Equally important is the fact female agents were not the norm and there was a widespread prejudice against women being involved in the war at all except as support staff, code-breakers, ambulance-drivers, the like.
In the case of Hall, her persistence in breaking through the glass ceiling is even more impressive when you realize she was raised and groomed for a life as well-off--and married--woman in high society, not a rough-and-tumble agent living on the lam and in often dire circumstances. Add to that that the lower half of her left leg had been amputated leaving Hall a woman with a disability that could have dimmed her prospects--if not for that determined, iron will of hers.
Because of that leg and her age, Hall wasn't the most likely covert agent for the Gestapo to hunt. She was versatile in her use of disguises, using her disability as a way to throw the hounds off her trail. All she really couldn't do was run. But she could hike across a treacherous mountain trail in the snowy Pyrenees. And that was just one exploit to admire in Hall's many-faceted career.
Another woman to admire is biographer Sonia Purnell who not only keeps a fast-paced, detailed story going, but she keeps reader interest with her scattered indications of what is to come, especially the consequences of certain events. It becomes very clear Virginia Hall was a stand-out officer during World War II and could have become a valuable asset in the CIA had the agency not been populated by the Father Knows Best mentality of the Cold War years.
So readers learn much more than the day-to-day operations of Hall's covert actions and I often wondered where Purnell found so many minute details of conversations, movements, relationships, etc. As with the other books I've read this summer, I ended up feeling a sense of shame that there was a time when women, no matter how talented, creative, motivated or successful, just didn't get their due and rightful recognition. Until now.
My July 1, 2019 review of D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose first appeared at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
My July 25th review of Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson first appeared at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/3uLD
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 26 at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/3RtY
Sonia Purnell
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Viking (April 9, 2019)
ISBN-10: 073522529X
ISBN-13: 978-0735225299
https://www.amazon.com/Woman-No-Impor...
This summer turned out to be my unexpected exploration into female participants in the French resistance during World War II. It began when I read D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose as well as Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson. Now, I've read a long-overdue, in-depth biography of American spy Virginia Hall by Sonia Purnell. I must concur with all the other complimentary reviewers who gave this history five star reviews.
I first read a short but very complimentary biography of Virginia Hall in Emily Yellen'sOur Mother's War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II (2004). In fact, Hall was the premiere lady spy in Yellen's overview that only glancingly looked at behind-the-lines operatives in France. Of course, Purnell's tome reaches far beyond the sort of general information Yellen had access to.
Purnell's years of research is an impressive achievement considering the gaps in available files and the likelihood many of Hall's exploits were never recorded by anyone. Part of this oversight is likely based on the reality Hall's labors were so clandestine there was every reason not to keep files on her work. Equally important is the fact female agents were not the norm and there was a widespread prejudice against women being involved in the war at all except as support staff, code-breakers, ambulance-drivers, the like.
In the case of Hall, her persistence in breaking through the glass ceiling is even more impressive when you realize she was raised and groomed for a life as well-off--and married--woman in high society, not a rough-and-tumble agent living on the lam and in often dire circumstances. Add to that that the lower half of her left leg had been amputated leaving Hall a woman with a disability that could have dimmed her prospects--if not for that determined, iron will of hers.
Because of that leg and her age, Hall wasn't the most likely covert agent for the Gestapo to hunt. She was versatile in her use of disguises, using her disability as a way to throw the hounds off her trail. All she really couldn't do was run. But she could hike across a treacherous mountain trail in the snowy Pyrenees. And that was just one exploit to admire in Hall's many-faceted career.
Another woman to admire is biographer Sonia Purnell who not only keeps a fast-paced, detailed story going, but she keeps reader interest with her scattered indications of what is to come, especially the consequences of certain events. It becomes very clear Virginia Hall was a stand-out officer during World War II and could have become a valuable asset in the CIA had the agency not been populated by the Father Knows Best mentality of the Cold War years.
So readers learn much more than the day-to-day operations of Hall's covert actions and I often wondered where Purnell found so many minute details of conversations, movements, relationships, etc. As with the other books I've read this summer, I ended up feeling a sense of shame that there was a time when women, no matter how talented, creative, motivated or successful, just didn't get their due and rightful recognition. Until now.
My July 1, 2019 review of D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose first appeared at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/XA7U
My July 25th review of Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson first appeared at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/3uLD
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 26 at BookPleasures.com:
https://waa.ai/3RtY
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