The Spy Who Loved
The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville
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3.9 • 43 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Spy Who Loved presents the untold story of Britain's first female Special Agent of World War II.
In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in the South Kensington district of London. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising; that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable.
The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Granville would become one of Britain's most daring and highly decorated special agents. Having fled to Britain on the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the intelligence services and took on mission after mission. She skied over the hazardous High Tatras into occupied Poland, served in Egypt and North Africa, and was later parachuted behind enemy lines into France, where an agent's life expectancy was only six weeks. Her courage, quick wit, and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and saved the lives of several fellow officers—including one of her many lovers—just hours before their execution by the Gestapo. More importantly, the intelligence she gathered in her espionage was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort, and she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE, and the Croix de Guerre.
Granville exercised a mesmeric power on those who knew her. In The Spy Who Loved, acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary history of this charismatic, difficult, fearless, and altogether extraordinary woman.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Apocryphally dubbed Churchill's favorite spy and possibly the inspiration for Ian Fleming's Vesper Lynd, Warsaw-born Christine Granville (1908 1952) was the "willfully independent" daughter of a charming but dissolute and caddish Polish aristocrat and a Jewish banking heiress. In England, following Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, Granville, armed with "her gift for languages, her adroit social skills, formidable courage and lust for life," volunteered for the British Secret Intelligence Service and hatched a bold plan to ski into Poland from Hungary, via the Carpathian mountains, in order to deliver British propaganda to Warsaw and return with intelligence on the Nazi occupation. In other heroic feats, Granville parachuted into occupied France to join a Resistance sabotage network, bribed the Gestapo for the release of three of her comrades just two hours before their execution, and persuaded a Polish garrison conscripted into the Wehrmacht to switch allegiances. Getting short shrift from Britain after the war, Granville supported herself with odd jobs before becoming a stewardess on an ocean liner, where she met the man who would fall for her and become her murderer. Mulley (The Woman Who Saved the Children) gives a remarkable, charismatic woman her due in this tantalizing biography. 16 pages of b&w photos & 2 maps.
Customer Reviews
Boring
Very long in the tooth and short on action
The Spy Who Loved
Wow! This author really did her homework. If you love non fiction, biographies, this is a very interesting story. I especially liked her footnotes and the detail she included. Wish they would make w film out of this one!
Fantastic
Chose to Granville for a project and did not know this beautiful woman could lead such an amazing life. This book is a perfect example of the way a woman should be seen as, not just some "helpless little girl". Good job Mulley for showing the world how amazing Christine was. She fascinates me so much that I'll have to buy the book!