Academy-award-winning actress Margot Robbie never knew about the achievements of female spies during World War II. “The things women did in the Second World War were incredible,” she’s quoted as saying in a Radio Times interview. “We have a TV project [in development] about female codebreakers who shaved two years off the war. Never heard of any of them, or the women of the SOE [Special Operations Executive]. I would have loved to hear about that in class.”
Robbie is talking about the female secret agents of Britain’s SOE, who were charged by Winston Churchill to “Set Europe ablaze” with espionage, sabotage, and organized resistance in occupied Europe. More than 3,000 women were involved.
General (Sir) Colin Gubbins, the chief of SOE, said after the war, “Per capita, the secret war was bloodier than the Somme. The only difference was that the cries were muffled and, in many instances, the corpses were never found.”
Robbie, like most of us, never studied these spies in school.
From the moment I began researching my main character Maggie Hope—a mathematician who’s a codebreaker and SOE agent—I went back to the real-life agents who made such brave contributions to the war effort. I was especially inspired by Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, who did her paramilitary training in Arisaig, Scotland and went to secret agent “finishing school” in Beaulieu, England, then sent on to Paris. Her real-life story is relayed in Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu and M. R. D. Foot. The more I’ve learned about these women, the more impressed I become and the more I ask myself: would I have had this kind of courage if I’d been alive eighty years ago?
This is a list of my favorite novels with female spies, written by women (with one exception), and inspired by the feats of the heroic women who served as spies in WWII.
Margot Robbie, please take note.
Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin
Melanie Benjamin’s Mistress of the Ritz is based on the real-life stories of the American women who secretly worked for the Resistance, while mingling with the occupying Germans at the iconic Hôtel Ritz in Paris. Benjamin weaves in the true story of Blanche Auzello (née Rubenstein) who was the wife of the long-reigning Managing Director of the Ritz, Claude Auzello. If you’d like to read more about Madam Auzello, read Queen of the Ritz, by Samuel Marx.
The Brass Compass by Ellen Butler
Lily Saint James comes to the attention of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—the American counterpart to SOE—and is placed as a nanny in the household of an important Nazi Colonel, where she is able to gather intelligence for the Allies. Butler’s fascination with WWII history originally peaked when her grandfather revealed his role as a cryptographer during the war, and she’s a member of the OSS Society. To learn more about U.S. female agents, read Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS by Elizabeth P. McIntosh.
Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini
American Mildred Fish marries a brilliant German economist and accompanies him back to the Fatherland in the 1930s. When war breaks out, Mildred resists and attempts to bring down the Third Reich from within. She gathers intelligence for her American contacts, including Martha Dodd, daughter of the US ambassador. To learn more about the women of the German resistance, read In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson.
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulkes
Scottish lass Charlotte Gray falls in love with a RAF pilot and joins the ranks of SOE to try to find him when his plane is shot down in Occupied France. While the novel focuses on love, memory, and forgiveness, it’s also based on the real-life exploits of women in SOE who worked with the French resistance in Nazi-occupied France. Charlotte’s a composite character, based on actual agents Pearl Witherington, Nancy Wake, Odette Sansom, and Violette Szabo. For a terrific look at the lives and accomplishments of these women, read The Women Who Spied for Britain: Female Secret Agents of the Second World War by Robyn Walker and HRH The Princess Royal.
The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
Jenoff tells the story of three different ordinary women who leave behind traditional lives to do the extraordinary—act as secret agents in Nazi-occupied Paris. The real-life inspiration was Odette Sansom, a spy code-named Lise, who wanted to do her part to fight the Germans. Read about Sansom’s real-life exploits in Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy, by Larry Loftis.
Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon
Lawhorn based her novel’s heroine on the real spy Nancy Wake, a New Zealand woman who married a Frenchman and joined the Resistance, smuggling messages and food to underground groups in Southern France and helping refugees flee to Spain. Wake was one of the most decorated women in WWII and her story is told in Nancy Wake: SOE’s Greatest Heroine, by Russell Braddon.
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Quinn spins a tale inspired by a real-life incident a small town in German-occupied northwestern France, a few days after the D Day landings in Normandy. Great War spy Louise de Bettignies, whose code-name was “Lili,” is joined by fictional British/French Evelyn Gardiner, code-named “Marguerite.” Marguerite works in a collaborator’s restaurant, serving Germans and picking up information along the way to pass to Lili, her British handler. To learn more about Bettignies’s WWI spy work, try Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War by Tammy M. Proctor.
Black Roses by Jane Thynne
Black Roses is the first novel in the Clara Vine series set in Nazi Berlin. Clara is a young British actress who finds herself working at the famous Ufa studios and begins to work undercover for British intelligence, spying on Nazi women, including Magda Goebbels, Anneliese von Ribbentrop, and Goering’s girlfriend, Emmy Sonnemann. For a glimpse into the lives of the Nazi wives and mistresses, try Nazi Women: The Attraction of Evil by Paul Roland.
The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams
A young society reporter, Lulu Randolph, is sent to the Bahamas, where the infamous Duke and Duchess of Windsor have been banished, because of their Nazi connections. When an important scientist is found dead, Lulu goes to London to try to solve the mystery. For more about “that woman,” including her time in the Caribbean, read That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba and 7 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-Up in History by Andrew Morton.
And coming soon—
Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black
Black’s known for her Aimee Leduc series, but on April 14, 2020 she’s making a marked departure with a new, stand-alone thriller. It’s about an American spy named Kate Rees and is set during the German occupation of Paris. An American markswoman, Kate is sent by the British secret service on a mission to assassinate Hitler on his victory tour. But when the task goes awry, Kate goes on the run, fighting to survive the very spy network she was supposed to have been a part of. Black’s novel is fiction, but for a look at the actual attempted assassination of Hitler, read Secret Germany: Stauffenberg and the True Story of Operation Valkyrie by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.
