Liberation

February 15, 2020
During World War II, a scrappy Australian teenage runaway turns pampered bride, then Resistance agent and ruthless soldier in the French countryside. " 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't be like those other wives. The thought of hurting you is awful but so is the thought of letting those bastards win....' Nancy twisted in her seat and hitched up her skirt so she could sit astride him. 'Henry Fiocca, I fucking love you.' " In the less successful of two novels this year inspired by the amply decorated, famously high-spirited World War II heroine Nancy Wake (the other is Ariel Lawhon's Code Name H�l�ne), the character emerges as a feisty foremother of Lisbeth Salander. While Wake's liberal use of profanity is a historical fact, documented in her own autobiography and elsewhere, here it is deployed with anachronistic abandon. "Vagina, vagina, vagina," shouts Nancy in her interview for a position with the British Strategic Operations Executive. "It's a scien-fucking-tific term!" The facts of Wake's war participation, working with the Resistance troops in the Auvergne, are dramatized in high-stakes scenes of battle, ambush, and betrayal. As in life, Nancy kills one man with her bare hands and others with a gun; she completes an epic bike ride that saves the day. But some aspects of this character's behavior--her treatment of a gay radio operator comrade in arms (at first close friends, she later accuses him of "sticking [his] cock in every hole [he] can find"); her participation in a fireside blood ritual with a Resistance leader; other unpleasant interactions with the soldiers of the Maquis--seem to strike the wrong note. The first collaboration by American screenwriter Darby Kealey and British historical fiction author Imogen Robertson under the pseudonym Imogen Kealy, this novel is already being adapted into a feature film for Anne Hathaway. We look forward to the movie.

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April 1, 2020

It's 1943. France is firmly under Hitler's thumb, but the French are fighting back in lightning-quick guerrilla raids. England helps by sending supplies and men--and one very formidable woman, Nancy Wake, who would go on to be one of the most-decorated women of World War II. Originally from Australia, she fled to New York when she turned 16, and from there, London and Paris, where she became a journalist. Disgusted by the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, she vowed to fight them by any means. So successful was she at escaping them, she was christened the "White Mouse." Her band of raiders, along with similar bands all over France, played a part in the success of D-Day. This book is packed with authentic, realistic scenes, including moments of sheer terror. Though fictionalized, it captures the spirit of this amazing and intrepid woman, and the desperation and courage of the French freedom fighters. VERDICT Readers who enjoy World War II fiction and stories of extraordinary women will savor this first collaboration between screenwriter Darby Kealey and novelist Imogen Robertson, which is slated to be a motion picture. Additionally, this novel is a good accompaniment to Wake's 1986 memoir, The White Mouse.--Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY

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April 15, 2020
The spate of recent fiction about female operatives fighting with the French Resistance continues with this gripping thriller. Basing their novel on the real-life exploits of New Zealander Nancy Wake, screenwriter Darby Kealey and novelist Imogen Robertson (writing under the pseudonym of Imogen Kealey) begin the story in Marseille, where Wake, married to French businessman Henri Fiocca, joins the Resistance and quickly becomes an underground legend, dubbed the White Mouse by the Germans for her audacious attacks on Nazi positions. Later, after her husband is taken by the gestapo, she joins Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) and, like Kate Rees in Cara Black's Three Hours in Paris (2020), becomes the special target of a Nazi officer, who uses Wake's imprisoned husband as bait. Throughout, Kealey emphasizes the challenges Wake faced and overcame in the face of gender prejudice on the part of her comrades. There are moments when the very real tension slips into melodrama, but overall this is an exciting and super cinema-ready WWII thriller. It's no surprise that Anne Hathaway is adapting the novel as a film.Women in Focus: the 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)