Date: ?? April 2020
Location: Zoom
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we were unable to hold our normal meeting to discuss this book.
When it became obvious that social distancing was going to be with us for some time, several of us began holding Friday afternoon Happy Hours over Zoom.
Although we never had a formal meeting for this book, a number of us did read it, and we discussed it briefly during some of the Happy Hour meetings. The book’s subtitle is The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, and it is the story of Virginia Hall, an American who worked as a spy for British intelligence in occupied France.
Hall’s accomplishments and exploits in support of the French Resistance were incredible and make for some gripping reading. However, some of the Bookers found the book very depressing, mainly the descriptions of the lives and dangers faced by her, by the Resistance fighters and by the French people in general. It was also sad that, during her lifetime, she never got the full recognition in the US for her skills and her important work during and after the war.