The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville

by Clare Mulley

Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary story of Britain's first female special agent of World War II, a charismatic, difficult, fearless, and altogether extraordinary woman.

The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Special Agent of World War II

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in the South Kensington district of London. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising; that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable.

The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Granville would become one of Britain's most daring and highly decorated special agents. Having fled to Britain on the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the intelligence services and took on mission after mission. She skied over the hazardous High Tatras into occupied Poland, served in Egypt and North Africa, and was later parachuted behind enemy lines into France, where an agent's life expectancy was only six weeks. Her courage, quick wit, and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and saved the lives of several fellow officers - including one of her many lovers - just hours before their execution by the Gestapo. More importantly, the intelligence she gathered in her espionage was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort, and she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE, and the Croix de Guerre.

Granville exercised a mesmeric power on those who knew her. In The Spy Who Loved, acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary history of this charismatic, difficult, fearless, and altogether extraordinary woman.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, War, Espionage, World War II, Book Club

426 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Clare Mulley is the award-wining author of four books:
- 'Agent Zo' (W&N, 2024) about the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi German-occupied Poland. Elżbieta Zawacka was the only female member of Poland's elite special forces. Shortlisted for the Women's Prize.
- 'The Women Who Flew for Hitler' (Macmillan, 2017) explores the lives of Nazi Germany's only female test pilots, Hanna Reitsch & Melitta von Stauffenberg. Longlisted for the HWA prize.
- 'The Spy Who Loved', (Macmillan, 2012) looks at the secrets & lives of Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent during the 2WW. Under option.
- 'The Woman Who Saved the Children', (Oneworld, 2009), is about Eglantyne Jebb, controversial founder of Save the Children, & won the Daily Mail Biographers Club prize. Under option.
Broadcast includes BBC's Rise of the Nazis, The One Show, Newsnight, & various series for Channels 4, 5, The History Channel, Smithsonian, & Sky. Clare is also a regular contributor to radio and pods, & a popular public speaker.
Clare writes & reviews for the Spectator, BBC History, Literary Review & Telegraph among other publications, & has judged several literary prizes.

Reviews

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are the top 3 things, in order, that I thought of constantly while reading this book:

1. Poland has had a lot of bad luck (these thoughts popped up partly because I had just read what the Soviets had done to it a few centuries before in Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman). And has one of the blackest histories of WW2. And it needs a lot more attention, appreciation, and historical content shed on it and it's plight.

2. Even fierce, intelligent, noble women spies get marginalized by their bosses, male counterparts, and history.

3. Being a biographer has got to be hard.

My admiration for Christine Granville was exquisite while reading about all her adventures. She was in fact an actual, living and breating spy who could probably hold her own against fictional spies of many books. Bombs, dropping out of planes, breaking resistance leaders out of Nazi jails, skiing into german occupied poland through hungary - the woman was a force to be reckoned with. But I couldn't get past the nondescript characters that filled out the rest of her life. Names were never nuanced with traits, hair color, etc. and suddenly I couldn't distinguish that polish lad she knew in poland with the polish lad she was an agent with in France....and she and her life lost some flair because of it.

Other personality traits become confusing as the author describes Christine (was she a flirt? An exaggerator of her exploits? Quiet? Shy?) and i have no sense of her fully. I appreciate the incredible painstaking research that went into this, especially regarding the fact that as a British agent the info was most likely very hard to come by, but Christine herself does not come through, instead she is only a small glimpse of data and names and while impressive, never help me understand why so many felt so compelled and drawn to her.

[Magda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I bought it after I saw Clare Mulley give a talk on the life of Christine Granville and after half an hour of detailing one impossible feat of heroics after another, Mulley confessed she'd barely got started... Granville's entire professional life as a spy was a series of inspirational impossibilities.

The book is fluid and engaging, written with sophistication, passion and a wealth of research to back it up. Recommended.

[Pirate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant account of a remarkable woman, one of those countless people often reduced to footnotes in larger broader histoory boos who deserve books on their own. Very cripsly and wittily written when that was required, brings in to play the remarkable characters that populated the SOE, heros all and with countless tales to tell. The heroine is a female James Bond of inestimable courage, nerve and wit. The book also lays bare again the betrayal of the Poles by all sides from the start of the war to the post war period. Especially marking is the lack of gratitude shown to them post war in Britain after their great courage being told to go home to a country that was no longer the one they had left. It also evokes superbly the bravery of the French Resistance, the real one not the thousands that suddenly claimed to be after the war. There are a couple of things that jar but they are minor in comparison to the high qulaity of the book. This is a truly engrossing and touching book right down to its tragic end. Couldn't recommend it highly enough. Can't wiat for her next book.

[Ben Everhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Loved it so much that I don't want to return it to the library. I've finished it. It's sitting here, and yet, I feel compelled to hold onto it for as long as I can. Part of me has to hold back from re-reading it again.

Christine Granville was an extraordinary person and this is a great biography. Page turning while, at the same time, demanding each anecdote be savored. How can you read this and not fall in love with this woman?

World War II is brought to life in such a compelling, devastating way through these pages. Although this is one person's story, it becomes an invaluable vantage point for the entire conflict through Europe. The history is brought to life here, vividly jumping off the pages.

The New York Times book review notes "If a Hollywood movies isn't made about Christine Granville's remarkable life, I'd be amazed."

This is true. From Warsaw, to Hungary, to Istanbul, Cairo to Vichy France fighting with the French resistance, Christine was there. I don't know any one person with such a varied set of global experiences during WWII. She becomes an amazing point-of-view for so much of the conflict. Telling her story is like telling the story of the entire war. It's Spielbergian, really. Almost perfectly so. In many ways, that'd be so perfect it stings (and while Rooney Mara is pretty young for the part, I can't help but imagine her.)

But what I wonder is if Christine's life story is better served as an HBO series? World War II is one epic subject they have yet to portray as an on-going series. And there's more than enough material here to get 5 seasons. How is this not in development right now?

I think it's only a matter of time. These are stories that soon, everyone will know. A stunning biography about an amazing woman.

[Lewis Weinstein]

UPDATE 12/18/17 ... I read the section on Polish resistance which deals with the days immediately after the German invasion (Sep 1939) ... not much there ... skimming through the rest of the book, I tend to agree with the 1* an 2** reviews on amazon ... this is often disorganized, repetitive and factually unsupported ... the notes and bibliography were virtually useless ... I was actually quite disappointed since my expectations (see below) had been high.

***

I just read an excellent review of this in the NYT. The woman was Polish, volunteered for the British, and spent much of the war ferrying messages and people in and out of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. This woman, or a fictional character based on her, must be a part of my new novel.

UPDATE 9/5/13 ... I just watched the video done by the author and posted to GR. It is really terrific.

[Rupert Colley · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Originally posted on History In AN Hour: http://www.historyinanhour.com/2013/0...)

One can’t help but gasp with admiration at the life and exploits of Christine Granville, one of Britain’s bravest wartime heroines. On reading Clare Mulley’s entertaining biography, The Spy Who Loved, we are introduced to a woman who lived life on the edge and who found ordinary, routine existence a bore. Mulley writes with almost a venerable regard for her subject and rightly so, for one would expect the life of Christine Granville to exist only within the pages of fiction. Indeed, she may well have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s character, Vesper Lynd, from his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale.

Born Krystyna Skarbek in Poland, 1908, to a rakish father, a count who taught her how to ride a horse like a man, and a wealthy, Jewish mother, Christine Granville, the name she later adopted, enjoyed an aristocratic, carefree childhood, whose tomboy antics earned the respect of her loving father. Granville disdained authority and convention from an early age, pushing boundaries wherever she went. As a convent schoolgirl, she was expelled for setting fire to the priest’s cassock. (He was wearing it at the time).

Absolutely fearless

With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Granville and her second husband travelled to London where she offered her services to British intelligence. She was sent to Hungary and from there, skied into German-occupied Poland. And from here, Granville’s life of adventure, incredible courage and resilience begins. ‘She is,’ wrote one secret service report, ‘absolutely fearless’ and, from another report, ‘ready to risk her life at any moment for what she believed in’. What Granville believed in, was to play an active role in undermining Nazi control of her beloved homeland.

Once, having been arrested by the Gestapo in Poland, she bit her tongue so hard as to make it bleed. The Germans, fearing she was suffering from the dreaded tuberculosis, released her. Mulley gives us plenty of examples like this, example of what she calls Granville’s ‘sangfroid’.

Granville had ‘an almost pathological tendency to take risks’ and the British sought to find her work that was ‘sufficiently risky and bloodthirsty to appeal to her’. Her work gave her a purpose in life and, although hard to credit, its danger sometimes left her shaking with laughter, such was her addiction to adrenalin and risk.

Granville joined Britain’s SOE service, established in July 1940 on the orders of prime minister, Winston Churchill, and was to become the SOE’s longest-serving female agent.

Mulley takes us on an exhilarating journey as we follow Granville from Poland to Cairo and then, from July 1944, into Nazi-occupied France where she joined the resistance. It was here, in southeast France, that Granville embarked on perhaps her most daring undertaking. Three resistance colleagues had been arrested by the Germans and faced certain execution. Granville walked straight into the lion’s den of the Gestapo HQ and demanded to see the commander-in-charge. We read Mulley’s description of the episode with our hearts in our mouths; such is the extent of the risk and Granville’s bravado. It really is one of those occasions where, if you were reading this as a work of fiction, you would dismiss it as far-fetched.

The horrors of peace

Following the war, Granville, missing her adrenaline-fuelled life, found adjusting to ‘the horrors of peace’ difficult. Having been rendered stateless by Stalin’s post-war occupation of Poland, Granville had difficulty settling or finding employment. The British decorated her with enough medals and awards to make, as Mulley observes, a general envious, but they seemed particularly unable or unwilling to find her a job: ‘she is altogether not a very easy person to employ,’ wrote one dismissive report. That she had no office experience counted against her – as if a woman of Granville’s character could have been contained within the four walls of an office.

Christine Granville was murdered, aged 44, on 15 June 1952. This is not a spoiler, we know this from the off. But the way Mulley describes the impending tragedy is poignantly done. She describes Granville meeting Dennis Muldowney, a man with whom Granville experienced a brief if unfulfilling relationship, and we are filled with a sense of doom. Cast aside by Granville, Muldowney became obsessed by her. Without resorting to fiery prose, we, the reader, feel outraged as Mulley recounts the final days and hours of Granville’s life, leading to her violent and tragic end.

Granville loved men and men loved her. She was married twice, neither time particularly happily, and had numerous lovers. Men were hypnotized by her vibrancy and her love of life, and no man ever possessed her; no man would have been capable of it. As Clare Mulley states, writing for History In An Hour last year, ‘Nobody possessed Christine, not her father nor either of her husbands, not any of her lovers and certainly not her killer.’

Christine Granville’s life and personality were so charismatic that it needed a skilled writer to do her justice. Fortunately for us, sixty years after Granville’s untimely death, Clare Mulley has proved herself worthy of the task.

Rupert Colley

[Eugene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. Christine Granville's story is so compelling that I expected the book to be equally compelling. It wasn't. It's worth reading if you are interested in the topic (as I am). If you're just looking for a "good read", move on.

The first 50 pages were almost tortuous. The author introduced a dizzying number of people (most of whom weren't significant characters). That combined with the Polish names (are half of all Polish men named Andrzej???), the Anglicized version of all those names, the aliases, etc. made it very difficult to follow. I realize this was a challenging book to write: a complicated story, many characters who came and went throughout the story, the name thing. But still...I think the author could have done a better job with these challenges.

After I struggled my way through the first 50 pages or so, it got better. But it was still just so-so. I would have enjoyed it more if it had been written in a narrative rather than biographical style.


* The footnotes were totally distracting. Many should have been in the text. Others were non sequiturs - who cares? In both cases, they were annoying.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this biography, but it was dry, boring and monotonous to follow. It was not written very strongly, simply just a presentation of facts, without really getting to know Christine Granville.

[LillyBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't finish the book, so I almost didn't rate it and write a review thinking perhaps I'd go back to it later; but, really, there are too many books in the world for that. The interesting thing is I didn't stop reading this book because it was horrible (that would be a one star rating); rather, I stopped reading this book because I wasn't connecting with it. I think the subject matter is extremely intriguing (that's why I checked it out in the first place), and the first 150 pages or so were well told with a nice brisk pacing, not too bogged down in minutia. I have some theories: it was too heavy for returning to work after two glorious weeks of staycation reading or perhaps there is something to that lighter-reads-for-the-summer ideology. Most likely, I suppose, is that sometimes it's the right book but the wrong time.

[erigibbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Nonostante gli arresti, le deportazioni e le esecuzioni, nel 1944 la Polonia vantava il più grande movimento di resistenza dell’Europa occupata, con un esercito di oltre trecentomila uomini e donne.”

E tra queste donne c’era Christine Granville, primo agente segreto britannico donna, di origine polacca, che nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale ha fatto di tutto per salvare il suo Paese, rischiando la vita innumerevoli volte. Però, anche se per il suo Paese ha sempre lottato, non ottenne mai riconoscimenti dalla Polonia, perché agiva come agente britannico. Assurdo, no?

Christine non ha ricevuto gli onori che meritava in quanto donna e in quanto polacca. La vita si è presa gioco di lei fino alla fine. Non è morta in guerra, con i suoi compagni, ma è morta da sola, in una hall di un albergo, per mano di un uomo che durante la guerra non ha praticamente alzato un dito.

“È stato detto che la grande tragedia di Christine fu quella di non essere stata uccisa in azione, ma forse la vera tragedia sta nell’averle negato la possibilità di scoprire ciò che avrebbe potuto essere nel mondo postbellico.”

La spia che amava di Clare Mulley non è un libro perfetto, può risultare lento e pesante in alcuni punti, ma mi ha permesso di scoprire e conoscere una grande donna, a sua volta imperfetta, ecco perché mi sento di consigliarvelo.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an extremely thorough account of the life of Christine Granville, a Polish Jew who became the first woman to work for the British SOE during World War II. Outfitted in the old wooden skies of yore, she skied over treacherous mountain terrain into occupied Poland, and was parachuted behind enemy lines in France. Amazing courage, indomitable physical endurance, and extremely quick wits contributed to Christine’s brilliant wartime record. Intrepid determination combined with prevailing optimism enabled her to power through seemingly hopeless situations. Christine was both beautiful and alluring, and had no intention of allowing her war time exploits to interfere with a colorful and varied love life. As well, she used her charms to great advantage where the enemy was concerned, distracting, flirting shamelessly, and blindsiding the unsuspecting. I must confess I found the foreign names confusing and difficult to keep straight, early on, and I did a bit of skimming. Hers is a story that had to be told and it is told well here. I feel compelled to try and appreciate immensity of the risks and sacrifices of such valiant forbearers. Along the same vein, Nancy Wake, by Peter Fitzsimons, is a riveting account of a similarly brave and beautiful Resistance fighter.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this but it has a terrible title - this is not a Mills & Boone wartime romance, the title diminishes the actual story and life of a complex and interesting woman living in complex and interesting times.

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of SOE's longest serving woman agent, and recipient of the George Medal, the OBE and the Croix de Guerre.

Clare Mulley has turned up a little known tale of a woman who fought not only the Nazis but the 1940s prejudices against an independent minded woman.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My goal is to review every book I read this year. We'll see if it actually happens...This was one of those great nonfiction books that has maybe 3 boring pages, which I've found to be quite rare. The author didn't try to expand the book to 700 pages by adding pointless, boring, repetitive content. I just realized that's a pet peeve. The subject was quite interesting, though you never do feel that you know her. Apparently this was the impression she gave in life, so maybe it's appropriate. She was incredibly brave, sometimes verging on reckless, and though she's sometimes difficult to like, she deserves recognition for her work in WWII.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What a book. What a woman. Amazing, fascinating story of a Polish woman who ended up spying for Great Britain during WWII, working in Eastern Europe, the Mideast, and France, against amazing odds, and having, um, multiple romances along the way. Sometimes at the same time. LOL This was a well written book--I couldn't put it down. I kept telling my husband not to bother me now, Christine just got arrested. :-) Loved it!

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christine Granville = clearly fascinating individual (a real life Polish James Bond, but a lady -- and incidentally perhaps the inspiration for Ian Fleming's Vespers, too). I mean, this woman was a half-Jewish Polish aristocrat who wound up a British spy, doing mission after mission throughout WWII (skiing through the Tatras into occupied Poland, working in Egypt and Syria, parachuting behind enemy lines into France), and taking on a bajillion lovers all the while (romance-writer Wendy wonders why oh why she couldn't have just ultimately settled down in Germany or Kenya with the lovely one-legged Andrzej, rather than meeting the untimely and weirdly meaningless end she did).

As well-researched as this book is, and as fascinating as Ms. Granville's life clearly was, something just didn't connect. It felt consistently tedious - facts facts facts - such that I wound up speed-reading through it. Kind of a bummer, given how colorful her story should have felt.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book! What a story!
It took me a while to get into the groove with this one, mostly because of Polish names that were unfamiliar and hard for me to keep track of as I read. I kept going and really could not put it down. Christine herself was fascinating, as were her effects on other people. What really made it special to me was discovering so much that I'd missed about the history of WWII itself, particularly in Poland and farther south. The author's hard work on research is evident. I may have to write her a thank you note.

[Isobel Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading about brave women and Christina Granville was an extraordinary human being. I was gripped right from the start and I still recommend this book to people, even though it was a good few years ago when I read it.

[Filmmaker Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrilling read.

[Mahmoud Abbas · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is truly an extraordinary book, about an extraordinary woman. I wasn't able to finish it--my reading life sent me off in another direction--but I hope to come back to it.

[cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Wonderfully written. Real insight into British Intelligence. Brave . Heroic. Sexy. True.
It's everything you love when you watch old black and white WW2 British spy movies.

[Melissa MacKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant!

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville - Nevisande : Clare Mulley - ISBN : 1250030323 - ISBN13 : 9781250030320 - Dar 426 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2012

[D.J. Cockburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A schoolgirl wanted to know how saintly the school's priest was. When this schoolgirl wanted to know something, she didn't stop wanting to know until she found out. It transpired that the priest wasn't up to the standards of the martyrs he aspired to: when she set fire to his cassock, he stopped the catechism to put himself out.

It was the sort of bold but not entirely direct approach that would characterise the life of the woman who christened Krystyna Skarbek who, after two marriages, numerous cover names and a change of nationality, ended her days as Christine Granville.

I first heard of her when General Graeme Lamb, former Director Special Forces of the British Army, named her as the 'great life' he wanted to explore on a half hour podcast. Lamb shared the program with host Matthew Parris and historian Clare Mulley, author of the biography of the woman she called Christine Granville, in deference to the only of her names she chose for herself.

The Spy Who Loved must have been a monumental task, as so many of the details of Granville's life remain unclear. She spent her most interesting years navigating conflicting loyalties to organisations that were allied to each other but not exactly aligned. At the same time, many of her exploits were mythologised and exaggerated, often by people whose lives she saved. Frustrating and confusing as it must have been at times, Mulley's writing left me in no doubt that it was a labour of love.

Schoolgirls who set fire to priests rarely grow into women who fit their society, whatever society it happens to be. As the daughter of a Polish aristocrat and a Jew, born into a Poland that didn't exist as a sovereign state for the first decade of her life, Granville was destined to be a misfit from birth. When she found she preferred horse-racing and ski-ing to more traditionally feminine pursuits, she decided society would simply have to find a place for her.

She gave marriage a try and she was in South Africa with her second husband when the Wehrmacht marched into Poland. For millions of people across Europe, it was the beginning of a time of privation and death. For Granville, it was the adventure she had been waiting for.

A few weeks later, she was trekking back and forth across the border between Poland and Hungary as an agent of both British intelligence's Section D and a Polish underground organisation calling themselves 'The Musketeers. Section D had the rather muddled idea that she should carry propaganda into a country that was already resisting vigorously. More important was the intelligence she brought out, and the escape line through which she and her one-legged lover, Andrezj Kowerski, smuggled thousands of Polish soldiers across Hungary on their way to join the quarter million Polish servicemen under British command.

By the early months of 1941, much of the intelligence she was bringing out referred to the German buildup in preparation for invading the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hungary was cracking down on British and Polish activities. Granville left Budapest in the boot of a car to join Kowerski down the escape route where they had sent so many others before them.

On arrival in British-held Cairo, their welcome wasn't as warm as they hoped for. The Musketeers had been caught up in squabbling among the fragmented Polish factions and British intelligence found parts of her story so improbable that they suspected her of being a double agent. The British came around when they confirmed the intelligence they brought, but none of the Polish networks wanted any more to do with her.

She spent some time immersed in the hotbed of spying around the cafés of souks of Cairo but it was only through her links with Section D, now under military command as the Special Operations Executive, that she found a task more suited to her thirst for adventure: a night-time parachute drop into occupied France from 500 feet into the teeth of a gale.

By that time, the allies had the upper hand on the Western front. One allied army was fighting in Northern France, another was advancing through Italy toward the French border and a third was expected to land in the south of France. Granville arrived as France was turning from a German logistics base into a battlefield, and the resistance was abandoning its low profile for full scale guerrilla warfare.

Granville arrived to find Francis Cammaerts, her commanding officer and soon her next lover, caught up in the sort of factional dispute that had plagued the Polish resistance. Worse, the groups involved were untrained, under-equipped, outnumbered and so over-confident that they were seeking a pitched battle. The Battle of Vercours was as bloody a debacle as Cammaerts and Granville predicted, though they escaped and continued operating in the Alps. Once again, Granville was slipping back and forth across a mountainous border.

Perhaps her finest hour came when she found out about a German garrison manned by Polish conscripts. None spoke French so they were isolated from the local population, but the Germans hadn't reckoned with a Polish negotiator in the resistance. Granville persuaded the Poles to destroy their heavy weapons and desert, leaving a large gap in the German front. Many of the Poles joined the resistance, turning their weapons on the army that had drafted them.

A few days later, Cammaerts was arrested along with two other SOE agents. The Gestapo had no idea they had captured one of the most wanted men in Europe, but decided to execute all three on the off-chance that their cover story was a lie. Armed with nothing but money supplied by SOE, Granville tracked down the Belgian interrogator. Never one to underplay her hand, she opened by saying she was the niece of General Montgomery. She followed up with a detailed explanation of what the resistance would like to do to a Gestapo collaborator. By the time she finished, the interrogator was more than happy to sneak the three men out of their cell in exchange for the money.

When the Wehrmacht withdrew to the German border, she joined the rest of SOE to celebrate liberation in Paris. She didn't stay for long. While Cammaerts and the rest of SOE were celebrating the end of their missions, Granville returned to London to beg for a new mission to her beloved Poland. She ended up at an Italian airfield, waiting for a green light that never came. The Soviet army had over-run Poland and to her dismay, the British government agreed to Stalin's demand for a de facto Soviet occupation of Poland.

Like so many veterans of the Free Polish forces, Granville ended up in a country racked by postwar austerity and resented by people who saw them as competition for the few jobs available. Granville still preferred freedom to comfort, and worked a succession of menial jobs rather than accept a marriage proposal from the solidly employed Kowerski. She ended up cleaning toilets and changing bedsheets on a cruise liner, which at least allowed her to sate her urge to travel. Unfortunately, a policy of having staff wear medal ribbons on their uniforms left her ostracised. The rest of the crew believed a woman who wore the George Medal, Order of the British Empire, Croix-de-Guerre and a row of campaign medals must be a fraud.

Isolation drove her into the arms of, Dennis Muldowney, a mentally unstable steward. Granville's pattern had always been to move from lover to lover as her circumstances changed, and some found being left behind easier to accept than others. Muldowney was unable to accept it at all. He stalked her after they returned to London, and ultimately cornered her and stabbed her to death.

There is a bitter irony to her being murdered by a man so much less formidable than many she had faced.

In Budapest, Granville had been housebound with flu when she and Kowerski were arrested and spent the night being beaten by the police. Granville bit her tongue and, combined with her obviously being ill, the blood she coughed up persuaded the police she had tuberculosis. The police threw her out and, believing he would also be infected, they threw Kowerski out with her. On another occasion, she was stopped at a checkpoint manned by Italian conscripts. Before they could search her, she pulled out a pair of hand grenades, held them over her head and dared them to shoot her.

Faced with an obvious threat, she showed the courage and resource that led a special forces expert like Lamb select her, of all the possible candidates, as his great life. Faced with Muldowney, she saw a nuisance rather than a threat and dropped her guard for one fatal moment.

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, intriguing read! The Spy Who Loved illuminates the life of an amazing woman who saved the lives of many and changed the course of history during the Second World War. Bravo, Clare Mulley for bringing Christine Granville’s life and tragic death to the page in a thrilling, yet thoughtful manner. I believe you honour her memory with your research, interviews and writing. Well done!

[Leo Ratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense, very well researched book about an incredible heroine of WW2. This was such an exciting read and it shines a light on the horrendous, absurd world that is war.

[Kasia Ch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating! I commend the author for her incredibly thorough research of Krystyna Skarbek’s life. Being a Pole myself, I especially appreciated the fair insight into the tragic history of Poland during WWII and the post-war Communist occupation.

[Judie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christine Granville, born Krystyna Skarbek was the first woman working as a British spy during World War II. Her main objective was to help Poland, her native country, secure its independence. She served in Egypt, North Africa, and France (which she entered by parachute) and Poland (skiing across mountains) and not only provided important information to the Allies, but also saved Allied forces both as individuals and by supplying vital information. In one spectacular case, she rescued three agents an hour before they were to be executed.
For various reasons, she spent a great deal of time trying to convince the allies that a woman, especially herself, was capable of doing the dangerous work. Even her success (she later was awarded the George Medal, the OBE, and the Croix de Guerre), did not help her get assignments either during or after the war. The British government treated her abominably.
The first half of the book was tedious and, often, boring. It tells about her youth, family, and personal relationships. The second half, which covers her spy work, was much more interesting as it relayed the stories of her sorties, her life after the war, and her tragic death.
The book has maps of Poland before, during and after the war and tells how and why it changed. It also details much of what was happening in and to Poland. While she does mention some of the murder of the Jews in Poland, including her mother and other members of her family (her father was Christian and her mother, whose family was not religious, converted to Christianity before her marriage), when she refers to 6,000,000 Poles dying (one fifth of the total pre-war population), she does not mention that 3,000,000 of them were Jews, almost the entire Jewish population of the country.
Though there is a lot of information about her marriages and numerous affairs, that isn’t the basis of the title, THE SPY WHO LOVED. According to the author almost everyone Christine met, especially the men, fell in love with her. She was a loner and may have loved a few people but preferred her independence and freedom. She loved adventure, action, and the freedom to live as she desired.
Clare Mulley seems to be trying to write the definitive story of Christine’s life in THE SPY WHO LOVED. She had difficulty finding information and some of it was contradictory. At times, she includes several versions of a particular incident. She also provides too much information which I consider unnecessary. Most of the notes on the page tell about people who play a minor role in the story. E.g. she writes of the marriage problems of some friends, noting “the deaths in infancy of their two sons.” In a note at the bottom of the page she writes, “Both children died of natural causes, the eldest aged two, on the birthday of his younger brother.” .
I’m glad I read the book but should have started in the middle.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent biography of the Polish Countess who became known as Christine Granville and the first British female special agent of World War II. A story of a fascinating, brave and complicated woman who undertook dangerous work for the 6 years of the war. It is also a story of how she and her country Poland were both let down by the British after the war. Poland bring annexed mainly to the Russians who killed and exterminated as many polish people as they could find and Christine who they cut loose from the SOE once the War was over and left her to fend for herself, stateless and alone. No one comes out of this story well. Christine was undoubtedly a hero but she craved danger and excitement and this is what dictated her life and ultimately her death. The British looking to the wider need for peace in Europe sold the polish people into virtual slavery and death under Stalin. This book excellently sets out Christine's life and her bravery but it also looks at her own characteristics which made her both so brave and so reckless. What you can say from reading this book is that Christine lived a life that was full, not always happy , but she lived it on her terms and experienced much, and not many people can say that. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Second World War and the actions of SOE operatives.