A month would pass, and we would be told that Virginia had done a lot of work, but there was no real discussion of what that work was.īut I really, really wish the author and editor would have chosen to integrate sources differently into the narrative. A lot of the time, the writing felt like it was skimming her story because it moved so quickly. I also would have appreciated more tactics, how did all of Virginia's mission fit into the larger scheme of the war. Towards the end, a lot of names were thrown around that the reader has already seen, and I had to really, really search my memory to remember how they had helped or hindered Virginia. I would have appreciated more time developing side characters besides two or three who get particular attention. While I finished the book in just a few days (this is a great subway read!) and it's very engaging while you're reading, it feels very surface level. However, the reason I took off stars was the writing. This was an absolutely fascinating story, and I would love to go back in time and have dinner with Virginia Hall and just pump her for stories because damn. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.

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.

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. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate.

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. 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. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. 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 deemed 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. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: 'She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War

Virginia hall a woman of no importance