Agent most wanted The never-before-told story of the most dangerous spy of World War II

In the late 1930s, Virginia Hall was a free-spirited young woman who had studied in Paris and Vienna before beginning a career in diplomatic service at U.S. embassies abroad, performing mainly secretarial duties. She was capable of much more. When WWII began, she became an ambulance driver for a French regiment, but a special-operations branch of British intelligence hired her to gather information about German operations in Vichy France. She was uncommonly successful at eluding the enemy. Smart and resourceful, she would ultimately identify local French resistance groups, arrange for the British to supply them with arms, and direct secret operations against German forces. While Hall's cover as a credentialed American journalist provided some protection from the Gestapo, her courage, her ingenuity, and the loyalty of her allies were more vital. The young people's edition of Purnell's acclaimed A Woman of No Importance (2019), this riveting biography provides the framework of Hall's life, concentrating on the war years and her phenomenal ability to fade into the background while gathering intelligence, communicating with the British, and undermining German control within occupied France. Young readers intrigued by espionage during World War II will find this a well-researched, smoothly written, and completely riveting account of Hall's experiences.

An essential player in the French Resistance was an American woman. In this young readers' edition of A Woman of No Importance (2019), Purnell relates how Virginia Hall, from a once-moneyed Baltimore family, was a natural leader among her peers who was fond of riding and hunting. Hall found herself thwarted in pursuing a career that didn't sideline her because of gender. In a civilian assignment with the British Special Operations Executive, she trained as a spy and went to France in 1941. There, she gathered and relayed intelligence about the occupying Nazis and identified, organized, trained, and outfitted French citizens opposed to the complicit Vichy government. The narrative, pitched to middle-grade readers, follows Hall closely, providing just enough fully documented, concisely delivered information about the settings and circumstances of the Resistance to deliver a real sense of the danger and isolation faced by its subject. Well-chosen, key moments convey Hall's reliance on both luck and her own instincts, her quick thinking, her immense skill at assessing perilous situations, and her frank courage. A timeline and maps might have been useful, but this close-up look at the Nazi occupation of France--and the Resistance--will undoubtedly encourage further exploration. That Hall had a prosthetic lower leg she called Cuthbert makes even more dramatic her hike over the Pyrenees to escape from Nazi pursuers. A captivating account of a remarkable woman. (source notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

May 1940. France was falling to Germany. Ten million women, children, and old men--the largest exodus of refugees in history--were fleeing the armies of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Roads were littered with burned-out cars, possessions, and bodies. But the horde kept coming: a never-ending line too hungry, tired, and fearful to stop. A French army ambulance wove through the crowd, its driver a thirty-four-year-old American volunteer. Private Virginia Hall often ran low on fuel and medicine, but she just kept going. Even when enemy German aircraft screamed overhead, dive-bombing the convoys all around her, torching the cars and cratering the roads. Even when the planes machine-gunned the ditches where women and children were taking shelter. Even when her left hip complained with her constantly pressing on the clutch with her prosthetic foot. In the midst of destruction, she had never felt so thrillingly alive. Virginia's services as an ambulance driver was an apprenticeship for her future mission against the occupying German forces. In an age when women barely figured in warfare, she went on to create a daredevil role for herself involving espionage, sabotage, and resistance behind enemy lines. As an undercover agent, Virginia operated in the shadows, and that was where she was happy. Her closest allies knew neither her real name nor her nationality. She seemed to have no home or family or regiment, just a burning desire to defeat the Nazis. Constantly changing her appearance and mannerisms, surfacing without notice then disappearing again, she remained a mystery throughout the war and in some ways after it too. When the battle for France's liberation from Hitler's tyranny began, in 1944, the underground Resistance fighters she had equipped, trained, and sometimes commanded exceeded all expectations and helped bring about complete and final victory for the Allies: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. But even that was not enough for Virginia Hall. Excerpted from Agent Most Wanted: The Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.