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A review by hollyd19
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII by Sonia Purnell
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
5.0
Nearly unbelievable and quite engrossing, this book covers the covert operations of WWII’s impressive American spy Virginia Hall as she works to equip and liberate France from Nazi control through subversion and sabotage. Overcoming discrimination not only as a woman but also an amputee, Ms. Hall proved to be one of the most vital operatives of the SOE and OSS, arming rebel groups and gathering intel in Lyon and southern France.
Multiple times while reading this was I utterly floored that her story is not widely known, as at times it reads like a straight-up 007 adventure. At the halfway point, enough had already happened to fill two action-packed feature films. Virginia Hall’s story is absolutely worth reading, and admiring. Being a true story, the author had no control over the ending, but I was devastated that Virginia was ultimately stymied by the CIA in the postwar years due to her gender. What a waste of such an incredible mind.
Multiple times while reading this was I utterly floored that her story is not widely known, as at times it reads like a straight-up 007 adventure. At the halfway point, enough had already happened to fill two action-packed feature films. Virginia Hall’s story is absolutely worth reading, and admiring. Being a true story, the author had no control over the ending, but I was devastated that Virginia was ultimately stymied by the CIA in the postwar years due to her gender. What a waste of such an incredible mind.