The Spy

by Suzanne Kamata

Pearl Dubois is a Southern belle. She was born in New Orleans to a prominent and wealthy family. During the Second World War, she wants to help the Allies. She lands a job in Paris working for the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS is the first spy agency in the United States. Its goal is to gather intelligence about the Germans and to win the war. Pearl convinces her boss to send her on a secret mission. She will bring photos of German spies to General George Patton, who is stationed near the Belgian border. On the way to the general’s camp, Pearl and three companions are ambushed by Nazi soldiers. She becomes a prisoner and must survive by her wits until she can plot her escape. Based on the real-life experiences of Gertrude Sanford Legendre, the first woman to be captured as a spy during WWII, Pearl’s adventures are both riveting and inspiring.

100 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2020

About the author

Five-time Pushcart Prize nominee Suzanne Kamata is the author of the memoir Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair (Wyatt-Mackenzie, 2019); the novels Indigo Girl (GemmaMedia, 2019), The Mermaids of Lake Michigan (Wyatt-Mackenzie, 2017), Screaming Divas (Merit Press, 2014), Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible (GemmaMedia, 2013) and Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008); and editor of three anthologies - The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan, Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2009). Her short fiction and essays have appeared widely. She was a winner in the memoir category of the Half the World Global Literati Award.

Reviews

[Jackson Huff]

This is an extremely quick book to read and one that is hard to rate as I don’t know that I am the intended audience so I gave it 3 stars instead of the 2 it might deserve. I believe I read it in less than an hour and is very simple vocabulary and things obviously happen very quickly. I do like reading about World War II time and this was a very abbreviated story about just that so I enjoyed myself but there’s not really much to the story that is not completely explained on the back of the book. She wants to be an American spy, she gets captured by the Germans and imprisoned, she gets set free. That’s it not really any details.

[Cheryl]

I knew it was a literacy title, and in fact that is why I requested it (in the mood for something different and short). But still I felt it was a little too simple, too superficial. Otoh, I will consider more by the author. I do recommend it if you need some short historical fiction for a challenge. Young teen and up.

[Ramona]

A great short read. I was not familiar with this person - I read a lot of fact-based historical fiction. I appreciated the introduction, the author bio, along with the vocabulary term page -needed for younger readers. I will be looking for other writings of Suzanne Kamata.

[Kay]

I didn't realize this was a small book, written for young readers--but it was a good read and I learned about an American spy and her brief work. The details were sharp and believable and the adventure was real--I will pass it to my niece!

[The Adventurous Reader]

A cute little book touching on a bit of history.