Starred review from November 2, 2020
Robuck (The House of Hawthorne) delivers an edge-of-the-seat WWII spy story based on the life of OSS agent Virginia Hall. In March 1944, the American operative slips into Nazi-occupied France to organize and arm a resistance group called the Maquis before the D-Day invasion. Ahead of her mission, Virginia, who has a prosthetic leg, is informed by her London-based handlers that her life expectancy is six weeks. Even so, she must be extra careful. The Germans have already distributed wanted posters for the “Limping Lady” and have been looking for her for two years, since the Lyon network she headed was betrayed by a double agent. Now, on her current mission, she has a score to settle with those who plotted to betray her. The Germans grow more vicious after D-Day, as Allied troops, with help from the Maquis, liberate French towns. Robuck vividly captures Virginia’s internal struggle over her obligation to help win the war and her desire for revenge. Skillfully weaving events from the agent’s past with the tension-filled days and nights of 1944, Robuck creates an indelible portrait of an unforgettable hero. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
February 1, 2021
Robuck's (The House of Hawthorne, 2015) latest is inspired by the courageous true story of Virginia Hall Goillot, an American spy during WWII. Readers first meet Virginia in the summer of 1926, as she begins her studies in Paris, a city she fell in love with as a girl. By 1944, Virginia's life has changed more than she could have imagined. Disguised as an old woman, she aims to be invisible as she moves through the French countryside working to undermine and destroy the Nazis. Virginia and her networks wait for coded messages each night and long for the news of D-Day. Haunted by her past, Virginia summons the strength to move forward despite the trauma of war and her prosthetic leg. In every safe house in each new town, she keeps her distance from others, but is grateful for the people willing to risk their lives to help her, forming bonds stronger than blood. Full of heart, this is a harrowing tale of survival and bravery during one of the world's darkest times.
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