Russell Braddon (1921–1995)

This is an interesting true story about a special and brave woman. I don't think Braddon did much research. The dedication is written by Wake and it seems to me that it was dictated by Wake and then reworked and polished into a coherent book by Braddon, although Braddon says it was a result of interviews where he had to pull the information out of her bit by bit. He also interviewed a few of her comrades who are quoted from time to time, but there are no footnotes.

One thing that really bothered me, and this is a spoiler, so if that concerns you, stop reading now. Except for when Nancy had that dream, which was fairly early on in her work as an agent for SOE, there was no further mention of Henri, her husband, until almost the end of the book, and it seems from the way it was told that there really was no contact at all between them during the period when she worked with the Maquis. Now, writing letters may not have been feasible, I don't know, but Nancy worked for SOE and they had agents all over France. She could easily have asked them for information about her husband in Marseille, was he OK, etc., but apparently she never did. That brought her down one big notch in my estimation.… (mehr)