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A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WWII’s Most Dangerous Spy

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WWII’s Most Dangerous Spy

by SoniaPurnell (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2019

    $10.38
Synopsis

The incredible true and untold story of Virginia Hall, an American woman with a wooden leg who infiltrated Occupied France for the SOE and became the Gestapo's most wanted Allied spy, by acclaimed biographer Sonia Purnell.

The remarkable double life of an American-turned-British spy, Virginia Hall, a bolshie woman from Maryland who, determined to overcome a physical disability that threatened to define her life, successfully infiltrated Vichy France for England's SOE before America's entry into WW II and then, three years later, for the SOS, providing crucial intelligence and logistics for the mounting French Resistance and, later, Allied troops.

This is a compelling and inspiring tale of resistance, heroism, spycraft and overcoming prejudice, based on brand new and extensive research, for anyone who loves reading Ben Macintyre, Rick Stroud's LONELY COURAGE or Sarah Helm's A LIFE IN SECRETS.

$10.38

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 416
 Publisher: Virago
Published: 28 Mar 2019
ISBN 10: 0349010188
ISBN 13: 9780349010182

Media Reviews
In a riveting narrative that both astonishes and intrigues, Sonia Purnell presents one of the most breath-taking stories yet told of female courage behind enemy lines. For too long, the world ignored the role played by women in resisting Nazi occupation across Europe. As Purnell reveals, however, none of these unsung heroines were more steely than Virginia Hall, a young American - known as 'the limping lady' - whose readiness for self-sacrifice in the face of near certain death is all the more impressive given her own physical disability. The strength of this book lies not only in Purnell's intimate and moving portrayal of Virginia's secret work - holding her nerve even as she is hunted down in Klaus Barbie's Lyon - but also in the new light shed on the betrayal, bravery and bungling of Churchill's Special Operations Executive for which Virginia worked. Some of SOE's most celebrated male agents would later acknowledge that their own lives had depended solely on this young woman's sense of duty to survive * Sarah Helm, author of If This Is A Woman and A Life In Secrets *
What a fascinating story! Unbroken by a shooting accident that resulted in her left leg being amputated below the knee, Baltimore socialite Virginia Hall was determined to make a difference in World War II. With careful research and skilful writing, Sonia Purnell, in A Woman of No Importance, takes you deep into the covert operations Hall led in Nazi-occupied France, first for the British and then for the Americans. Readers will find this tale of her cunning and courage riveting * Douglas Waller, author of Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage *
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 *
Author Bio
Sonia Purnell is an author, journalist and broadcaster known for her investigative skills and lively writing style. Her first book, Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition, was long listed for the Orwell Prize for its insightful and ground breaking portrait of Boris Johnson. Her second book, First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill, tells the astonishing but previously untold story of Clementine Churchill, and has already been widely hailed on both sides of the Atlantic as 'riveting', 'eye-opening' and 'exemplary'. Sonia also writes for a variety of newspapers and is a regular broadcaster in Britain and abroad. She lives in London with her husband and two sons.