Agent Most Wanted: The Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II - Hardcover

Purnell, Sonia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593350545 ISBN 13: 9780593350546

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2022

Synopsis

A young readers adaptation of Sonia Purnell's New York Times bestselling book A Woman of No Importance, the story of Virginia Hall; the unassuming American spy who helped the allies win World War II.

Virginia Hall was deemed "the most dangerous of all allied spies" by the Gestapo. Armed with her wits and her prosthetic leg, she was deployed behind enemy lines to inspire resistance in France, providing crucial support to fighting the Nazi occupation. In this largely untold story, Sonia Purnell uncovers the truth behind a Baltimore socialite who was essential to allied victory.

Adapted for the elementary to middle school audience, Agent Most Wanted is equal parts an inspiring tale of feminism in a time when women weren't taken seriously, an epic spy story, and, of course, a retelling of winning one of the largest global conflicts in modern history.

About this title

About the Author

Sonia Purnell is a biographer and journalist who has worked at The Economist, The Telegraph, and The Sunday Times. Her book Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill (published as First Lady in the UK) was chosen as a book of the year by The Telegraph and The Independent, and was a finalist for the Plutarch Award. Her first book, Just Boris, was longlisted for the Orwell prize.

Reviews

Gr 5–7—Purnell adapts her bestselling A Woman of No Importance for a younger crowd in this gripping nonfiction work that reads like a spy thriller. Virginia Hall was known throughout her life by many names. She was Dindy to her family, Marie Monin to the French Resistance, and (because of her prosthetic leg) the "Limping Lady of Lyon" to Hitler's Gestapo and Abwehr secret police forces, but for many years, she was no one to most of the world, the true weight of her role in World War II unknown. Strong-willed Dindy's family was not surprised that she was unwilling to settle for a life as a housewife. After running off to France to escape a fiancé, Virginia came back to the States, went to college, and set her sights on a career as a diplomat. Though she never rose above a secretarial position in the deeply sexist state department, she worked in Europe as Hitler rose to power. Refusing to sit idly by, Virginia joined the fight, first as a volunteer ambulance driver in France and then, through some chance encounters, as the only U.S. citizen on the British spy force. The Brits trained her in spycraft and guerrilla war tactics, her primary objective being to recruit, train, arm, and maintain a French resistance behind enemy lines. The account of her many exploits is wonderfully written and made even more phenomenal by her determination. Readers will walk away inspired. VERDICT A first purchase where WWII history and riveting tales of adventure are popular.—Abby Bussen

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593350545
• ISBN 13: 9780593350546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208