A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

by Sonia Purnell (2019)

Purnell tells the impressive if grueling true story of Virginia Hall, an American woman who, after having cast about in the nascent pre-war foreign service, finds her calling in espionage after losing a leg in a skiing accident. Working for the clandestine British Special Operations Office, Hall single-handedly established networks of French resistance in the immediate aftermath of the German invasion of France in 1940. After having to extract herself from France with the Germans hot on her heels, Hall returned to France just before D-Day as part of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the British felt she was too well known by the Germans to return to France) and guided resistance groups in support of the invasion. Throughout, Purnell documents the difficulties Hall encountered not only from the enemy but from the male dominated espionage community she worked with, wary of any woman in field service and especially one with a disability. Purnell’s “just the facts ma’am” style could get tedious but for the sheer fascination of Hall’s extraordinary endeavors.

I listened to a digital download of this book.