Paris undercover A wartime story of courage, friendship, and betrayal

Paris Undercover is a reconstituted history of a previous wartime volume of the same name, originally published in 1943. This newer volume completes the stories of two extraordinary women who lived in Paris under the Vichy regime--Etta Shiber, an American Jew, and the French-speaking Englishwoman Kate Bonnefous. Goodman profiles Shiber's life in New York before detailing her move to Paris in 1937 to live with Bonnefous. When the Germans occupied Paris in June 1940, the women were determined to help prisoners of war in the occupied zone of Vichy France, setting up a network of alliances to hide British soldiers and helping them escape to the unoccupied zone with assistance from the British in the American Embassy and French priests. Unfortunately, in 1941, both women were betrayed, imprisoned, and initially sentenced to death. Shiber's sentence was commuted to three years' hard labor, and she was eventually repatriated in exchange for a German spy. Bonnefous was later sentenced to life imprisonment, subjected to torture, and transferred to nine different prisons before being rescued in 1945. She eventually returned to Paris and was compensated for her heroics during the occupation. Goodman is to be praised for his painstaking research in updating the record of these women's heroism. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty. --Andrew Mark Mayer, emeritus, College of Staten Island/CUNY

Two women who took on the Nazis.Paris-Underground, a 1943 bestseller, Book of the Month Club selection, and movie, describes two heroic women from the French Resistance. Journalist Goodman, author ofThe City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team, tells what really happened, preserving some heroism while adding some painful details. The women themselves were middle-aged (not, needless to say, in the movie). Prosperous and living quietly, they were as shocked as the world was at the Allies' sudden defeat in June 1940. Fleeing Paris along with several million others, they returned a few weeks later after the French surrender. Etta Shiber, the American author ofParis-Underground, was anxious not to make waves, but Kate Bonnefous, her assertive British companion, went to work. Already a Red Cross volunteer with a car and papers allowing free movement, she began visiting hospitals for injured Allied prisoners, purportedly to bring provisions but in fact to help them escape. Beginning in July she became a pioneer in a resistance organization that ultimately guided thousands of Allied servicemen across France and back to Britain. The women guided several dozen before their betrayal and arrest in November 1940. Sentenced to prison, Etta returned to the U.S. under an exchange in 1942. Kate received a death sentence, but it was commuted, and she survived the war, although barely. The final hundred pages describe their postwar lives while casting a gimlet eye on the accuracy of Shiber's book. Written by ghostwriters, it was heavily fictionalized, full of suspense and events that never took place. Sadly, Bonnefous, then a prisoner, wasn't fictionalized enough. Her thinly disguised name did not fool the Gestapo, who tortured her brutally in an attempt to get more information. The two never met after the war. Genuine heroism and well told, with no Hollywood ending. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.