<![CDATA[A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII]]>

false <![CDATA[A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII]]>

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Once rumored to have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny, Vera Atkins climbed her way to the top in the Special Operations Executive, or SOE: Britain’s secret service created to help build up, organize, and arm the resistance in the Nazi-occupied countries. Throughout the war, Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored the agents for the SOE’s French Section, which sent more than four hundred young men and women into occupied France—at least one hundred of whom never returned and were reported “Missing Presumed Dead” after the war. Twelve of these were women and among Atkins’s most cherished spies. When the war ended in 1945, she made it her personal mission to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines, tracing rigorously their horrific final journeys. But as the woman who carried out this astonishing search appeared quintessentially English, Atkins was nothing of the sort. As we follow her through the devastation of postwar Germany, we learn Atkins herself covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past. In A Life in Secrets Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera Atkins’s many veils. Drawing on recently released sixty-year-old government files and her unprecedented access to the private papers of the Atkins family, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.

557949

2005

A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII

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4 1 false false Thu Dec 20 14:13:22 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 20 14:18:04 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat May 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 28 00:40:29 -0800 2007 Sun May 11 10:29:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false true Sun May 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 20:58:34 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 18:22:40 -0700 2009
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 wort...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 20:08:35 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 20:08:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Feb 19 08:35:50 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 16 06:42:22 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 19 08:35:50 -0800 2009
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, ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 08 09:04:50 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 06:35:35 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 06 18:51:47 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 18:54:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Nov 24 12:34:58 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 24 12:37:33 -0800 2008
Great to read about women during WWII - but there a...more...]]> 5 0 false true Wed May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 21:59:30 -0700 2008 Wed May 14 22:05:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Mar 08 12:50:52 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 12:52:58 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Nov 03 13:21:39 -0700 2007 Thu May 10 04:06:15 -0700 2007 Thu May 10 04:25:03 -0700 2007
Following the war, she was insistent about tracking down what happen...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 04 07:10:30 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 07:13:42 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jan 22 21:44:44 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 21:16:45 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 21:43:41 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 14 17:04:24 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 14 17:06:06 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 16 13:27:24 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 16:26:20 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 13:27:24 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 22:49:08 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 22:50:12 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Apr 12 12:07:49 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 12:07:49 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 14:00:24 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 08 07:06:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Feb 22 14:44:51 -0800 2008 Mon Aug 11 19:06:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Aug 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 15:25:27 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 06:55:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=475464