Tag: spies

Online Reading Challenge – April Wrap-Up

- Ann Leave a comment

Challengers! How was your month? Did you read one of the books from our April Book Flight?

The main title this month was The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.  I loved this book. I read it several years ago shortly after it was published and quickly became completely immersed in the historic setting and the work of these brave women.

This is a book about two wars, of the price paid both by those who died and those who survived, of sisterhood and loyalty and immeasurable bravery.

Before reading this I was unaware of the extent of the spy network whose work was instrumental in fighting World War I, and I had no idea that so many women sacrificed so much working behind enemy lines. There really was an “Alice Network” made up of women who worked in France, gathering information and passing it along to the Allies. This work was incredibly dangerous since they often had to pose as neutral and even supportive of the Germans, usually in close contact, posing as waitresses, store clerks and secretaries and sometimes becoming their lovers, all to gather information.

Although the scenes set during World War I were by far the most riveting, I also enjoyed the post-World War II storyline. The parallels between the wars, especially the brutality and suffering, were eerily similar. And again, it brought to light a true story from the Second World War that I had never heard, that of the lost village of Oradour-sur-Glane in France.

What did you think about the women that worked as spies from any of our Book Flight books? Were you, like me, astonished by their sheer courage, their ability to overcome the fear of torture and death to complete a mission and to stay cool under pressure? What do you think motivated them – was it loyalty to a family member or loved one, or was it patriotism for a country? And what about their enemies, were they simply pure evil, or were they more complex?

Be sure to share your thoughts on this month’s Book Flight in the comments below!

 

Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams

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At the height of the Cold War, with fears running high and no one can be trusted, a woman must make a risky journey into the Soviet Union to save her sister in Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams.

Ruth Macallister hasn’t spoken to her sister Iris since 1940, when a serious disagreement forced them to part on difficult terms. Ruth leaves for the United States while Ruth remains in a Europe to stay with a US Embassy official, Sasha Digby, whom she has fallen in love with. Hurt feelings, the war and distance prevents reconciliation. When Iris, her husband and their children disappear in 1948 and it’s discovered that Sasha has been spying for the Soviet Union, Ruth doesn’t know if they’ve defected or been eliminated by the Soviets. With no word she carries on with her life as a successful career woman in New York and puts that part of her life behind her.

The past is brought back in full force when in 1952, out of the blue, Iris sends Ruth a postcard that appears to be a distress signal. Within days, Ruth has joined a daring plot to rescue her sister when she poses as the wife of Sumner Fox, an American counterintelligence agent. Together they fly to Moscow, where Ruth sees Iris again for the first time in 12 years.

What follows is a tense, emotional and dangerous flight from the Soviet Union in a precarious dash for freedom. There are plot twists, flashbacks to the past, the revealing of secrets all bound by the fierce love between sisters.

This is a great read full of intrigue and hold-your-breath moments. If you are following the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is one of the alternate titles for the April Book Flight,  which explores women spies, intelligence work and sacrifice.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

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This gem of a book is a compelling combination of hope and tragedy, of sacrifice and friendship, of loyalty and brilliant  intelligence and of trust and love in Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

Maddie is a working class girl who dreams of becoming a pilot. “Verity” is  casually wealthy and carefree. Despite their very different backgrounds, they become fast friends, creating  an unbreakable bond that strengthens and deepens as they train to be spies in World War II.

In 1943 the two women are to sent to war-torn France on a spy mission. However, their plane crashes behind enemy lines; “Verity” is captured by the Gestapo while the Maddie is left for dead. The French Resistance is able to help Maddie and she begins searching, against all hope, for “Verity”.

Meanwhile, “Verity” is being tortured by the Nazi’s for information. After horrible pain and suffering, she agrees to write out her confession which she promises will provide information on the Allies and their plans. This is where the book opens, with “Verity’s” confession except that she is taking her time, writing in detail about her friendship with Maddie and other stories unrelated to the war, with just enough information sprinkled throughout that the Germans allow her to continue.

This book is often heartbreaking, but it also has a lot of humor and even joy. The friendship gives both women, even when they’re apart, great strength and perseverance. And the ending holds a brilliant twist. Highly recommended.

If you are joining us for the 2022 Online Reading Challenge, this title works perfectly with our April theme of women spies, intelligence work and sacrifice.

Online Reading Challenge – April

- Ann Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

It’s time for a new Online Reading Challenge assignment! Our theme is female spies, intelligence work and sacrifice. There are some brilliant books to explore this month, covering spycraft from World War I through the Cold War. I highly recommend The Alice Network and Code Name Verity, two of my favorite books, and I also recommend Our Woman in Moscow.

This month’s main title is The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. In 1915, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance to serve when she’s recruited to work as a spy for the English. Sent into enemy-occupied France during The Great War, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the “Queen of Spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents, right under the enemy’s nose. Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn’t heard in decades, and launching them both on a mission to find the truth … no matter where it leads.

This title is also available as an e-book and an e-audiobook.

Alternate titles include: Code Girls: the untold story of the American women code breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy. This documents the contributions of more than ten thousand American women who served as codebreakers during World War II, detailing how their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and enabled their subsequent careers.

Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams. Autumn, 1948: Iris Digby, her American diplomat husband Sasha, and their two children vanish from London. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets? Four years later Ruth Macallister receives a postcard from Iris, the twin sister she hasn’t seen since their catastrophic parting in Rome in the summer of 1940. Now Ruth is on her way to Moscow, posing as the wife of counterintelligence agent Sumner Fox in a precarious plot to extract the Digbys from behind the Iron Curtain.

This title is also available in Large Print and as an e-book.

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson. It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, so when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American.

This title is also available as an e-audiobook.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

This title is also available as a Book on CD and as an e-book.

Check for these titles and more featured in displays at each of the Davenport Library buildings!

Online Reading Challenge – August

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Readers!

New month, new author for our Reading Challenge. This month’s author is : David Baldacci!

There will be no shortage of authors that are similar to Baldacci and, for that matter, no shortage of David Baldacci books to read. He has written 40 novels for adults (and that number keeps growing). He has several different series with recurring main characters, but they all have some of the same elements in common – a gritty thriller with lots of action, a main character that is usually a loner and often an ex-cop or ex-CIA or ex-military.  There’s a mystery that needs to be solved, requiring the main characters special skills/persistence/past history. These make great “beach reads” that don’t require much deep thinking but are fun and quick to read.

If you’ve already read everything by David Baldacci and/or you’d like to branch out, here’s a list of similar authors – all of which are pretty popular in their own right.

James Patterson

Lee Child

Brad Thor

Michael Connelly

Tess Gerritsen

Patricia Cornwell

Walter Mosley

Brad Meltzer

Daniel Silva

Harlen Coben

Iris Johansen

Kathy Reichs

There will be displays at all three Library locations with lots of titles to choose from.

I’ve actually never read anything written by David Baldacci, so I’m going to try one of his books. There are almost too many to choose from and opinions on each title swing from “the best book ever” to “Baldacci has lost his touch, this was terrible”! I finally settled on The Innocent, the first in his series about Will Robie, who is a “master assassin”. Hmmmm. Not so sure about this, but I’ll give it a try.

What about you – what will you be reading this month?

Online Reading Challenge – Wrap-Up

- Ann 2 Comments

Hello Fellow Readers!

How did your “spy reading” go this month? Did you read something that kept your interest during this difficult and confusing time?

I read Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon, a fictionalized account about a real person. Well, I meant to read this book this month, but, sadly, it didn’t happen. I blame the pandemic as I found myself constantly distracted. They claim that Shakespeare wrote King Lear while in isolation during the Black Plague, but he didn’t have 24/7 news or social media to block out! Here’s to hoping my reading mojo comes back soon!

I did get started on Code Name Helene and it certainly has potential. So here’s a quick overview of what it’s about and my initial impressions.

Nancy Wake left Australia in the 1930s as a young woman, seeking adventure. She traveled throughout Europe as a journalist and socialite, making contacts with the wealthy and the powerful. She was free-spirited, independent and stubborn, walking into danger without hesitation. As the Nazi’s gain power in Germany, she struggles to raise the alarm but finds that many people, such as her editor, don’t want to hear what she is telling them. Unable to stand aside and do nothing, Nancy becomes a spy for the Allies. Known for her signature red lipstick, ferocious wit and her fearlessness, Nancy eventually becomes one of the most powerful leaders of the French Resistance, frequently putting herself and her loved ones in danger.

The story jumps across timelines, from the late 1930s to the end of World War II and from the point-of-view of several characters. I often enjoy this style of storytelling, feeling that it gives a more complete view of what happened and the results and consequences. However, I was having more trouble keeping track of characters, locations and dates with this book – perhaps it was my pandemic-induced distraction, but I found it hard to really fall into the world of this novel.

Nevertheless, Code Name Helene has great potential as a superior spy novel with it’s brave heroine set during one of the pivotal periods of history.

Now it’s your turn. What did you read this month? Tell us in the comments!

Online Reading Challenge – Mid Month Check-in

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Readers!

How is your reading going so far this month? It’s a crazy time so you wouldn’t be blamed if your usual reading habits have veered off course. Maybe a movie or documentary would appeal to you? Here are some to look for that center on spies, real and imagined.

Since access to the library and our collections is still limited, let’s started with a couple of free online services that we offer! First up is Acorn TV which is a treasure trove of British and foreign television series and films. Here you’ll find the documentary David Janson’s Secret Service that examines the real-life versions of some of Ian Fleming’s most iconic characters – “M”, “Q” and James Bond himself. Another documentary available on Acorn TV is The Spy Who Went Into the Cold  about the devastating betrayal of top MI-6 official Kim Philby and his defection to the USSR in 1963.

A service just added to the Library’s digital content line-up is IndieFlix  an eclectic mix of independent shorts, documentaries and feature films. You’ll find lots of classics including the brilliant Notorious staring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman about a woman asked to spy on a group of Nazi’s living in South America. Or check out British Intelligence starring Boris Karloff about German spies placed in the home of a high-ranking British official during World War I.

At this time the Library is planning on reopening the drive-up window at Fairmount beginning on May 18. There will be strict guidelines to follow to protect both patrons and staff, but you should be able to start picking up reserves again. Fill your “spy” section of the Online Reading Club with a James Bond film like Skyfall or something humorous like The Kingsmen or The Spy Who Dumped Me. If you’re in the mood for bingeing a television series, try Turn: Washington’s Spies about spies during the Revolutionary War or The Americans about Russian double agents living in the United States.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on DVD

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CIA analyst Jack Ryan sits behind a desk, working on a computer. He is not, he repeats, not a field agent. But when he uncovers a terrorist’s plan for a massive attack on the United States and her allies, he is pushed into action and sent on a dangerous mission to end the threat in season one of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

The story is somewhat familiar: Suliman, a high ranking tribal leader in the Middle East has gathered a group of followers and is planning a massive strike on the West. Working as an analyst, Jack discovers a pattern of suspicious bank transactions that lead him to believe Suliman is planning something devastating. Despite the fact that he isn’t a field agent, Jack’s boss sends him to the Middle East to investigate and stop whatever the terrorist has planned.

Based on Tom Clancy’s books about Jack Ryan, this television series delivers with lots of action, intrigue, secrets and close-calls. John Krasinski as Jack Ryan is likable and relate-able, the every man (although one with considerable gun skills) that is pushed into impossible situations but manages to stay-the-course and come out in one piece. Ryan’s background is hinted out, but never fully explained, we simply know that he served in the Special Forces in the Middle East and was badly injured in battle.

A mature, fast-paced exploration of very complex issues.

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff

- Ann Leave a comment

Some sacrifices are never known. Lives are saved, missions completed because of anonymous acts of courage. The deeds slip into forgotten history, yet the bravery and the actions may have made all the difference.

1946. New York City. Grace Healey is rushing to work, when a car accident snarls traffic and forces her to make a detour through Grand Central Station. There she finds a small, abandoned suitcase wedged under a bench. Inside the suitcase she finds a dozen photos of ordinary young women, each of whom stare into the camera with determination. Grace is intrigued and begins searching for the missing owner and, she hopes, the mystery of the photographs.

Soon Grace is pulled into a story of intrigue and secrecy as she learns about the owner of the suitcase, a woman named Eleanor Trigg who lead a network of women acting as secret agents in Occupied Europe. Their assignments ranged from couriers to radio operators in aid of the resistance in the weeks leading up to D-Day and the invasion of France. Twelve women – the young women in the photographs – never returned, their fate a mystery.

Based on true events, The Lost Girls of Paris crackles with tension. The women are resourceful and brave, but face many obstacles and difficulties. Their contribution to the war effort is mostly forgotten now, but brought vividly to life again here. Author Pam Jenoff focuses on a few key members of the unit, creating a story that is intimate and real. It is an incredible story of friendship, bravery and betrayal and the strength to carry on.

This story of World War II was new to me, but it hasn’t been forgotten. A new non-fiction book about these brave women has just been published:  The D-Day Girls: the Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose which you can find at the Davenport Library.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

- Ann Leave a comment

This is a book about two wars, of the price paid both by those who died and those who survived, of sisterhood and loyalty and immeasurable bravery. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn alternates between the two World Wars. The similarities are chilling with threads that tie the two together in more ways than one.

1915. Eve Gardiner is one of thousands of file clerks in London, unremarkable in appearance, quiet and demure, but because of her upbringing she speaks flawless French and German. She is bored and feels useless so when a Captain from British Intelligence recruits her to be a spy, she leaps at the chance. After a few short weeks of training, she is sent to Lille in occupied France and takes on the role of a shy, simple waitress in a restaurant that caters to German generals. The information she gleans from their overheard conversations is passed on to her contact, the “Queen of the Spies” Louise de Bettignies who becomes a bright and shining light for Eve in a dark and dangerous world. The work is exhilarating and treacherous, even more so when the owner of the restaurant takes an interest in her. One misstep and all will be lost.

1947. Charlotte (Charlie) St. Clair is young, unmarried and pregnant. Her wealthy parents send her to Switzerland to have her “Little Problem” taken care of and to preserve her (and their) reputation. Charlie is heartbroken over the recent suicide of her brother (a soldier who came home from the war but never left it) and the complete lack of information of what happened to her beloved French cousin Rose who she is convinced is still alive. In London, Charlie slips away from her Mother and contacts the one person she thinks might be able to help her – one Evelyn Gardiner. Evelyn’s hands are horribly disfigured and she is bitter and angry (the first thing she does to Charlie is to pull out a Luger and threaten to kill her) but eventually she agrees to go to France with Charlie see if they can find Rose. Accompanied by Evelyn’s driver Finn, they make their way to a France that is still torn and broken by the war. The horrors of World War II are very much still evident, but the shadows cast by World War I are still present too.

The book alternates between these two story lines, chapter by chapter. The connecting threads between the stories is gradually revealed, leading to an explosive final confrontation. It is one of those books that’s difficult to put down when you’re reading it and nearly impossible to forget about when you’re finished. I certainly found this to be true.

There are a lot of books about the World Wars, especially WWII, but The Alice Network manages to take a closer look at two lesser known subjects – the women who spied for the Allies during World War I, and the aftermath of the war in the countryside of postwar France. What really adds weight to the book though, is that many of the people and heart-stopping incidents depicted are true – there really was a network of female spies in German occupied countries during WWI and it really was called the Alice Network and was led by Louise de Bettignies, one of the most accomplished and successful spies the Allies had. Most of the things that happen in the book – the secrets the women uncovered, the danger and brutal punishments they suffered – actually happened. And in Charlie’s timeline, there is one episode that she comes across that is absolutely true (and absolutely chilling) but probably little-known outside of France. Evelyn and Charlie are fictional, but what they see and feel and experience are very real. Don’t miss the author’s notes at the end for more about these nearly forgotten heroines. And don’t miss this book.