Sonia Purnell shared “The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II” in her recent bestseller, A Woman of No Importance, and it’s now the October 2023 selection of the Iron Book Discussion Group:
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BOOK DESCRIPTION: In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”
The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill’s “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and—despite her prosthetic leg—helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.
Virginia established vast spy networks throughout France, called weapons and explosives down from the skies, and became a linchpin for the Resistance. Even as her face covered wanted posters and a bounty was placed on her head, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped through a death-defying hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown. But she plunged back in, adamant that she had more lives to save, and led a victorious guerilla campaign, liberating swathes of France from the Nazis after D-Day.
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. A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman’s fierce persistence helped win the war.
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Copies of A Woman of No Importance can be picked up from the Book Discussion Shelf on our first floor, and it’s available digitally as an ebook (through Overdrive/Libby) and an audiobook (through Overdrive/Libby).
An in-person discussion of A Woman of No Importance will be held at the library on Tuesday, October 10, at 7:00 PM. No registration is required to attend.
And an online discussion of the book will be held via Zoom on Thursday, October 12, at 3:00 PM. If you’d like to attend the online discussion, please register through our Event Calendar. Participants will receive an email with the login information for Zoom after registering.
Published on September 15, 2023.
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