The last secret agent My life as a spy behind Nazi lines

Review by Booklist Review

A statement attributed to the Buddha follows that "three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." The Last Secret Agent shows the limit of this assertion. Phyllis "Pippa" Latour kept the secret of her career in Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE), a WWII counterintelligence unit, for decades. Her own children didn't find out until Pippa was in her eighties. Now, it is the rest of the world's turn. Born in South Africa in 1921, Latour moved to England in May 1939 and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in November 1941. Her fluency in French led to her recruitment by the SOE, and she was deployed to Normandy. Posing as a teenage girl who sold homemade soap, she worked with two other spies, Claude de Baissac and his sister Lise, to transmit encoded messages to SOE headquarters--messages that were vital for identifying enemy targets. More than a wartime tale, the book spans Latour's entire life, giving us detail after rich detail of one of history's most amazing women.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In May 1944, Latour parachuted into occupied France and posed as an itinerant soap-seller while covertly telegraphing German troop movements to the Allies, a previously undisclosed secret life that she vividly narrates in her self-possessed and immersive debut. Born in South Africa to parents of French descent, Latour was orphaned at age four and raised by a series of extended family members across Africa. At 15, she attended a Paris finishing school owned by her godmother Josianne, living with Josianne and her elderly father; in 1939, they sent 18-year-old Latour to England, where she learned of their deaths four years later. Motivated by revenge, Latour joined Britain's Special Operations Executive program (a rare woman recruit, she made the cut because of her language skills). Latour's dispassionately described education in covert ops is arresting in its practicality and surreal optics, as new recruits were instructed in savage commando maneuvers on the lush grounds of stately manor homes. Once in France, Latour found that her false papers identifying her as 29 years old did not match her 23-year-old appearance, so she assumed the role of a Paris schoolgirl selling soap, a guise that allowed her to move freely between 17 different hidden radio sets. Despite recounting near-constant threats of discovery, Latour rarely dwells on the danger. The author's measured restraint only serves to heighten the tension in this white-knuckle account. (May)Correction: An earlier version of this review misspelled the author's last name.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Latour's memoir is a fascinating page-turner, from her unexpected birth on a ship gangway in South Africa in 1921, through to her courageous and harrowing activities in 1944 as one of Britain's covert operatives in Nazi-occupied France. Posing as a 14-year-old soap seller, Latour risked torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo to send wireless transmissions back to Britain and ultimately was one of a very few operatives to survive the war. Latour's first-person account is relayed with the help of cowriter Jude Dobson, who worked with Latour on the book until the spy's death in 2023 at the age of 102. The memoir's voice is that of a dispassionate centenarian, far removed from the harrowing events she recounts but whose strength of loyalty and gratitude for those who served with her in 1944 has never diminished. VERDICT This highly readable account will appeal to casual World War II historians as well as those interested in the mechanics of spycraft, with the proviso that this is unapologetically a memoir, with all the narrow focus and bias that would suggest.--Caitlin O'Leary

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

True courage comes in many forms. Latour described her life as "unusual." This is an understatement. She was the last surviving undercover British female agent of the Special Operations Executive in World War II, working as a radio operator in occupied France. She sent details of German troop deployments to London and relayed instructions for Resistance actions. Latour had come to the role through a circuitous path, having traveled extensively before ending up in Britain. Her journeys made her multilingual and allowed her to adapt to different settings. When she was offered a place in the SOE, she jumped at the chance, even though the lifespan of agents in France was often brutal and short. She did well in the job, though, getting around on bicycle on the pretext of selling goat's milk soap. "Don't think of me and my fellow agents as 007 types," she says. "Our job was to disappear, to fit in and not be noticed." She was questioned several times by the Gestapo, but her luck and cover story held. Understandably, she was often scared, and by the war's end, she was traumatized and exhausted. After the war she drifted around the world, eventually settling in New Zealand, where she lived peacefully. Latour kept her past a secret--even from her husband--until one day her eldest son read about her wartime experiences online. Now, with the help of journalist Dobson, she has told her story, as well as those of other female agents. The result is a fascinating read, all the more so because of Latour's humility. Regrettably, she died in 2023, unable to see the finished book. She was 102. A wartime spy's remarkable tale, told in an authentic voice. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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