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152nd out of 315 books
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A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII
by
Sarah Helm
From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II.
As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After ...more
As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After ...more
Paperback, 544 pages
Published
December 10th 2008
by Anchor
(first published 2005)
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This is a non-fiction book about Vera Atkins, a key player in British intelligence during World War II who was responsible for agents dropped in France to form a resistance movement. I was STUNNED at the gross incompentence of the spy masters and at the large number of agents who parachuted directly into German hands. Vera's boss was a buffoon whose stupidity led many agents to their deaths. The author is an investigative reporter, so unlike WWII spy novels in which the focus in on plot and i...more
This biography of Vera Atkins is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. I was amazed at the breadth and depth of Helm's research. I was amazed at the level of incompetence in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), clandestinely established by the British to place saboteurs into Europe.They were engaged in recruiting, and setting up resistance organizations as well as supporting them behind enemy lines. The ability to rationalize away grave mistakes in judgment as the result of the fog...more
Vera Atkins, the “spymistress” who sent men and women as agents to France during World War II, was a wealthy Anglophile Jewish woman in Romania who ended up trying to assimilate in England and becoming den mother to a legion of undercover operatives in France. This biography of Atkins is better even than the novels of Alan Furst! The book conveys the author’s heroic effort to excavate the truth about Vera’s life and also about the agents, many of whom landed right into the arms of the Germans a...more
Leslie
rated it
·
review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who like WWII memoirs, espionage, strong women
Ooof - this is a long, detailed, sometimes disturbing but always fascinating account of Vera Atkins' work with female SOE agents both during the war, and after. She spent a great deal of time post-war tracking down and interviewing witnesses on both sides of the war who could provide details of her missing female agents, and their ultimate demise.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
It took forever to get this read, but was well worth the time. A fascinating and haunting biography of an interesting life, cloaked in secrecy. The biographer does a superb job in organizing, parsing, and uniting all the stories that make up this book. Kudos to her for unraveling the mystery. This book is well worth reading if you're interested in covert operations in WWII, British history, women's history. It's also one of those books that starts you off on other journeys. I'll now have t...more
This is the true story of Britain's Special Operations Executive and how, after World War II, its "spy mistress" went in search of her missing agents. Clearly, "A Life in Secrets" has all the makings of a great book, but it never quite engaged me. For one thing, the protagonist, the austere, self-absorbed Vera Atkins, is not very likable. Plus, the SOE -- sort of a kid sister to MI6 -- was filled with incompetents at the staff level, and this is the reason so many of Atkins' ...more
I could not put this book down and it was not even remotely near what I thought it would be. If you are looking for accounts of women that were in the SOE... this is not a read for you. If you are looking for the British account of SOE that is shrouded in secrecy and fueled with conspiracy...look no further. I appreciated the author's investigative strive and abilitiy that must have bordered on obsessive, similar to her subject, Atkins, but driven by different motives. Helm's own conflict wi...more
From Barnes & Noble:
From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II.
As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for twelve o...more
From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II.
As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for twelve o...more
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 ...more
This is well-written narrative non-fiction with great pacing. From a technical standpoint, I couldn't decide if I liked the author interjecting direct quotes of questions and answers from herself and interviewees. In some instances, it seemed distracting and out-of-place, while in others it was actually reasonably effective. But, I couldn't help feeling overall it was a bit lazy somehow. My other complaint was that I really wished Helm could have summed up her own picture of Vera more. Vera...more
An incredible biography about the woman who ran all of the woman SOE agents in occupied France. Layer upon layer of investigative reporting reveals the secretive Vera Atkins and the daring, brave, tragic and amazing tales of her lost agents...and her dogged search to discover each of their fates...makes for a totally compelling story. I have so much respect for Helm's work,
The puzzling story of Vera Atkins, Jewish-Roumanian-German staff member of the French section of the Strategic Operations Executive (SOE), a British sabotage organization in WWII. After the war she investigated into how a quarter of the sections agents died. SOE is the same organizaton that Leo Marks (author of Between Silk and Cyanide) worked for as a creator of codes.
About Vera Atkins and some of the first female spies sent into Nazi occupied France during WWII. Sarah Helm traveled all over collecting information that made up the details of Vera Atkins, a woman undercover from even possibly herself.
Great to read about women during WWII - but there are harsh realities inside this cover.
Great to read about women during WWII - but there are harsh realities inside this cover.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
An excellent book and well worth reading. Vera Atkins was indeed an enigma but this book tries to dispell some of the myths. What can't be denied is the work Vera Atkins put in after the war to find the missing female SOE agents that didn't return home.
Jenett
rated it
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review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people interested in interpersonal relationships
This has turned out to be a totally fascinating book for several reasons. Vera Atkins was a fairly senior spy agent for the British government, responsible for managing agents in France, including 19 women, during WWII.
Following the war, she was insistent about tracking down what happened to her agents - and why things went wrong. Some of what's in the book is tragic and miserable (as one might expect, given that many of the lost agents ended up in death camps). What's particularly ...more
Following the war, she was insistent about tracking down what happened to her agents - and why things went wrong. Some of what's in the book is tragic and miserable (as one might expect, given that many of the lost agents ended up in death camps). What's particularly ...more
A fascinating history and biography, I learned so much!
Read my full review here on my book blog.
Available at Teton County Library, call number 940.54 Helm
Read my full review here on my book blog.
Available at Teton County Library, call number 940.54 Helm
Really enjoyed it starting out but it bogged way down toward the end. I kept trying to finish it and finally gave up. Good writing and interesting story that could have benefited from some consolidation and cuts.
Not sure how I feel about Ms. Atkins after reading this and this account is pretty long on details in some places, but I learned a lot and was fascinated by what these mere civilians were willing to sacrifice.
I could barely put this book down. From page one I was hooked. The stories about agents going behind Nazi lines into France were compelling, and Vera Atkin's tenactiy to discover what happened to each and every agent that did not come back was admirable. The descriptions of conditions in the prisons, camps and countries during WW II are difficult to read and accept. Then Sarah Helms goes beyond these points in history to discover what shaped Vera Atkins. Helms does not wear only rose colored g...more
Amazing story about WWII spies for Britain, many of them of whom were women and whom went unacknowledged for decades after the war. Vera Atkins was not a spy herself, but coordinated the special group of spies. When things went terribly wrong and the Nazis captured her people, Atkins went on a personal journey, after the war, to find out what happened to each and every one.
The book is as much about her search, as it is about Atkins, who is a mysterious character herself. I found myse...more
The book is as much about her search, as it is about Atkins, who is a mysterious character herself. I found myse...more
You'd dismiss this as a Hollywood adventure story if you didn't know it was completely true. Fascinating and deeply moving.
A little heavy since it is about WWII and Nazi Germany but very fascinating and a testament to those that endured this time in history.
So I seem to be on a UK and WWII kick these days! This is a non-fiction biography of a woman who supervised female spies who parachuted into France during WWII to transmit information back to London. Many of the agents were captured and Vera Atkins spent years tracking down their fate. Also included is her own story, where she was raised (not England) and what happened to her as well. A related story that is more popularly known is the novel Charlotte Gray (also a movie) that depicts the wo...more
Interesting look into the workings of British agents in France and the mop-up work that went of after the fireworks
A good book in total. Some sections really pull you in, others get dragged down in details
Picked this up at my local library on a whim and found it very compelling.
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I am an ambiguous admirer of Vera Atkins and, after reading this book, a huge admirer of Sarah Helm. This is a harrowing book, a war history as well as a biography, and the amount of detective work Helm’s done in pulling together the story of Atkins’s life—as WELL as retracing Atkins’s steps in some of her OWN detective work—is tremendous. I’m a little envious! (from a time and money point of view). I’m also agog at the gargantuan task Helm has done in putting all this minutiae together to m...more
I'm not really a non-fiction reader, but I was glued to this book.
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