Sonia Purnell
Viking, 2019. 368 pages. Nonfiction
Virginia Hall was born a Baltimore socialite, but sought more excitement from life. After traveling extensively in Europe and pursuing a career, she found herself in the right place at the right time to make a difference at the outbreak of World War II. Virginia became a Special Operations Executive for England, working behind enemy lines in occupied France, providing support to spies sent in from Britain, establishing resistance networks throughout France, aiding operatives who had been caught and imprisoned, leading a victorious guerilla campaign, and dodging German detection - sometimes only narrowly avoiding capture. She did all this with a prosthetic leg, acquired in a hunting accident before the war.
If you have read other spy stories from World War II, there is a good chance those operatives were at some point directed or aided by Virginia. She was a linchpin of the Resistance, and operated the most successful spy networks in occupied France during the war. Yet her life has been mostly a mystery until the dedicated research of author Sonia Purnell, who pieced together bits of information found from a multitude of sources to paint a picture of Virginia Hall's life and critical work. This is a fascinating story and a much-deserved spotlight on a remarkable and important woman.
BHG
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