In 1942,the Gestapo would stop at nothing to track down a mysterious'limping lady'who was fighting for the freedom of France. The Nazi chiefs issued a simple but urgent command:'She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.'
The Gestapo's target was Virginia Hall,a glamorous American with a wooden leg who broke through the barriers against her gender and disability to be the first woman to infiltrate Vichy France for the SOE. In so doing she helped turn the course of the intelligence war.
This is the epic tale of an heiress who determined that a hunting accident would not define her existence; a young woman who gambled her life to fight for the freedoms she believed in; an espionage novice who helped to light the flame of French Resistance.
Based on new and extensive research,Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall,an astounding and inspiring story of heroism,spycraft,resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity.
Publisher: Little,Brown Book GroupISBN: 9780349010168Number of pages: 416Weight: 337 gDimensions: 196 x 126 x 34 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'It is a pleasure to read a biography in which the author admires her subject so warmly. This might so easily have been a pernickety,fact-finding book,but instead it is a rousing tale of derring-do. Men,women and tomboys will all enjoy the courage and initiative of Virginia Hall'-The Times
'Impressively researched and compellingly written,this brilliant biography puts Virginia Hall - and her prosthetic leg Cuthbert - back where they belong: right in the heart of resistance history'- Clare Mulley,author of The Spy Who Loved and The Women Who Flew for Hitler
'A gripping,relevant and timely read about a remarkable woman from a talented writer'- Deborah Frances-White,author of The Guilty Feminist
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