Sonia Purnell

***A New York Times bestseller*** 'Riveting' Mick Herron, New York Times * 'A rousing tale' The Times, Book of the Week * 'Cracking' Telegraph * 'Gripping' Irish Times * 'Brilliant' Evening Standard * 'Excellent' Spectator In September 1941, a young American woman strides up the steps of a hotel in Lyon, Vichy France. Her papers say she is a journalist. Her wooden leg is disguised by a determined gait and a distracting beauty. She is there to spark the resistance. By 1942 Virginia Hall was the Gestapo's most urgent target, having infiltrated Vichy command, trained civilians in guerrilla warfare and sprung soldiers from Nazi prison camps. The first woman to go undercover for British SOE, her intelligence changed the course of the war - but her fight was still not over. This is a spy history like no other, telling the story of the hunting accident that disabled her, the discrimination she fought and the secret life that helped her triumph over shocking adversity.

The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII

A Woman of No Importance

"The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic panache, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war"--

The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

The story of Virginia Hall is amazing. From the ups and downs throughout her life, its amazing to read about how she helped fight Nazis during WW2. Her story is truly remarkable and the author does a great job writing the story! 5 stars, a must read!

Max Riley

Patrick Book

This lady was WILD! What an incredible retelling of a story rife with impossibility, defied at every turn by an incredibly powerful woman. Someone make this a movie!

elizabeth

The story is fantastic. The writing didn’t do it for me. 

When it comes to its subject matter, A Woman of No Importance falls into the same category as The Personal Librarian, which I read last year. Each book tells the story of a woman who made history--as in, created history--but who has been obscured (by men, their own humility and privacy, and by the simple passing of time).

The Personal Librarian illuminated a life that I felt I should know about, and I can say the same of A Woman of No Importance; I loved learning about Virginia Hall’s life and work. While Benedict’s writing was sometimes a little stiff, Purnell’s simply strikes me as bland or uninteresting. Every sentence seems to be similar in structure and tone, delivering little to no dramatic impact as they outline Virginia’s participation in some of the highest-stakes operations of World War II. Maybe (likely) the culprit for this is Purnell’s journalistic approach to writing a true biography of Hall, whereas Benedict took some liberties to translate what’s known about Belle de Costa Greene’s life into a fiction novel. I can’t fault Purnell for choosing to approach telling Hall’s story this way, but I can say that it isn’t for me.

I also had trouble with how this approach left me with a relatively superficial understanding of Hall’s work. I learned she sent some correspondence, made some underground allyships, and sniffed out trouble (and did all to help win the war) but it wasn’t always clear how she was able to do these things. I sometimes wanted more of the nitty-gritty than Purnell could offer, and I can only assume that’s due to a lack of available documentation of that work, not a lack of research on Purnell’s part (because the book does seem incredibly well-researched). 

This is the type of story I’d love to watch, even if it means some screenwriter somewhere needing to take a few creative liberties or make educated guesses to fill in the gaps in the research. I’d love to see Hall’s story actually brought to life in a way that reflects how absolutely bonkers and impressive her life was.

Chelsea White

I love a good spy story, a true one is even better. Virginia Hall did so. Much. For the resistance in France, HOW is she not more known? I know how, but still. Her journey through the mountains could be an epic scene in a movie alone.

A Woman of No Importance The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII

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