roseybot's review against another edition
5.0
I'm reading for research atm, and picked this up cause it was in Code Name Verity's bibliography. ABSOLUTELY fascinating and well researched. I knew about the French resistance and that the British were involved, but I didn't know how wrong it all went and how there were so many conflicting things going on that "the fog of war" was really real.
Vera Atkins is a very interesting case, and while I think this book might have softened her edges, maybe it didn't. Vera was able to be many, many things, and I'm fascinated by her 'spy-ness'.
Plus, despite it being a history and it taking me a bit to get through it, the book read fast. It was thriller pacing, and I always wanted to be reading more of it, instead of whatever I was supposed to be doing.
Days between when I added this to read and when I read it: 0.
| 1/12/19 1230 ratings (466 5*, 460 4*, 228 3*, 56 2*, 20 1*) ) 170 reviews / added by 5369 people, 3816 to-reads
Vera Atkins is a very interesting case, and while I think this book might have softened her edges, maybe it didn't. Vera was able to be many, many things, and I'm fascinated by her 'spy-ness'.
Plus, despite it being a history and it taking me a bit to get through it, the book read fast. It was thriller pacing, and I always wanted to be reading more of it, instead of whatever I was supposed to be doing.
Days between when I added this to read and when I read it: 0.
| 1/12/19 1230 ratings (466 5*, 460 4*, 228 3*, 56 2*, 20 1*) ) 170 reviews / added by 5369 people, 3816 to-reads
stephaniebooks's review against another edition
3.0
This book is dry, but having read some of Sarah Helm’s other work, I suspect that is much more Vera’s fault than anyone else’s.
Vera seems an incredibly difficult woman to pin down, and is described by countless of her contemporaries as ‘cagey’, so I can’t imagine the difficulty in pulling her story together from scraps after her death. Helm pulls together the multiple threads of her life in a masterful way, taking you through the research process alongside her while she uncovers Vera’s story, with all of the threads coming together only just at the end.
That being said, I do think there have been more recently written narratives with new document caches opened since this book’s publication, and the causal reader of this subject is likely better served elsewhere.
Vera seems an incredibly difficult woman to pin down, and is described by countless of her contemporaries as ‘cagey’, so I can’t imagine the difficulty in pulling her story together from scraps after her death. Helm pulls together the multiple threads of her life in a masterful way, taking you through the research process alongside her while she uncovers Vera’s story, with all of the threads coming together only just at the end.
That being said, I do think there have been more recently written narratives with new document caches opened since this book’s publication, and the causal reader of this subject is likely better served elsewhere.
rseykora's review against another edition
There is a lot of information to sort through in this book, but it is well researched and written.
bdw's review against another edition
3.0
I picked up this book with high hopes, but after reading it I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. I was hoping for an in-depth biography of Vera Atkins, a woman who was very high up in the British spy organization SOE during the second world war. Instead, the book concentrates on the women she sent into France to spy during the war and her search to find them or discover their fates after the war. A good subject, definitely, but the author's failure to flesh out the women and her dry writing style made it hard to get through. Instead of really caring about them, I found myself reminding myself that they were real women and their fates were horrible, and that I *should* plow through the book for that reason alone.
The book did have some good points. The retelling of the women's experiences in concentration camps was horrendous and brutal. The end section discusses more of Vera's motivations and early life. I wonder why this wasn't put in the beginning, to give the reader more of a feel of who the woman was.
The book did have some good points. The retelling of the women's experiences in concentration camps was horrendous and brutal. The end section discusses more of Vera's motivations and early life. I wonder why this wasn't put in the beginning, to give the reader more of a feel of who the woman was.
caitlinxmartin's review against another edition
4.0
I got this book through a Member Giveaway on LibraryThing & I'm so glad I did - I wouldn't have found it otherwise.
This history of Vera Atkins & her search for her missing agents after D-Day was absolutely riveting - not a word I use often. Well-written, cogent, unblinking - this is worth the read.
Vera Atkins was the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the war. This group recruited, trained, & dropped volunteers behind enemy lines during the war. These volunteers, many of whom were young women, parachuted behind enemy lines & established & operated "circuits" of agents who worked against the Germans in various ways.
After the war a number of these people simply didn't show up again & Ms. Atkins appears to have been one of the only people who felt it was her duty to find what happened to them. Higher ups in the British government at the time did not want, for instance, to release the names of these people to the International Red Cross & other relief agencies working with war refugees as it was felt that to do so would be a) to admit they were spying, & b) that they sent women behind enemy lines.
The story of Ms. Atkins' pursuit of the fates of these people combines with the story of the author's pursuit of the story of Vera Atkins is the focus of the book. There is a lot of information here that is pretty horrifying. Ms. Atkins was finally given permission to research the fate of these people only after survivor stories told of four of the women being put into the crematorium alive.
Equally horrific is the knowledge that the fate of these people was practically guaranteed by the stupidity and short-sightedness of many of the leaders at the SOE who ignored strong evidence that their circuits had been compromised & continued to parachute people into France - often directly into the hands of the Gestapo who were waiting for them.
Ms. Atkins is throughout an enigmatic and mysterious figure who certainly had plenty of reasons to sell the heroism of her group and their agents. The story of these people is, however, full of simple moments of heroism and years that Ms. Atkins spent discovering their fate were well-spent.
This history of Vera Atkins & her search for her missing agents after D-Day was absolutely riveting - not a word I use often. Well-written, cogent, unblinking - this is worth the read.
Vera Atkins was the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the war. This group recruited, trained, & dropped volunteers behind enemy lines during the war. These volunteers, many of whom were young women, parachuted behind enemy lines & established & operated "circuits" of agents who worked against the Germans in various ways.
After the war a number of these people simply didn't show up again & Ms. Atkins appears to have been one of the only people who felt it was her duty to find what happened to them. Higher ups in the British government at the time did not want, for instance, to release the names of these people to the International Red Cross & other relief agencies working with war refugees as it was felt that to do so would be a) to admit they were spying, & b) that they sent women behind enemy lines.
The story of Ms. Atkins' pursuit of the fates of these people combines with the story of the author's pursuit of the story of Vera Atkins is the focus of the book. There is a lot of information here that is pretty horrifying. Ms. Atkins was finally given permission to research the fate of these people only after survivor stories told of four of the women being put into the crematorium alive.
Equally horrific is the knowledge that the fate of these people was practically guaranteed by the stupidity and short-sightedness of many of the leaders at the SOE who ignored strong evidence that their circuits had been compromised & continued to parachute people into France - often directly into the hands of the Gestapo who were waiting for them.
Ms. Atkins is throughout an enigmatic and mysterious figure who certainly had plenty of reasons to sell the heroism of her group and their agents. The story of these people is, however, full of simple moments of heroism and years that Ms. Atkins spent discovering their fate were well-spent.
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