a woman of no importance by sonia purnell review

A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one womans fierce persistence helped win the war. The Economist said this: “As tales of wartime derring-do go, it would be hard to beat that of Virginia Hall…With her thriller writer’s style and copious new research, Purnell has written a fitting and moving tribute to an amazing woman. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hallan astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. This is a lively and meticulously researched biography of a trailblazer who now has a CIA building named after her.”

Kirkus Reviews calls A Woman of No Importance “a remarkable chronicle of a courageous woman who had to fight for every ounce of recognition she deserved. Sonia Purnell brings the intrepid Virginia Hall to life with a novelist’s skill and style.įind A Woman of No Importance in these formats at Plano Public Library: Over the next four years, Hall became a resourceful and fearless operative, respected by the French Resistance, and wanted as the notorious ‘limping lady’ by France’s Nazi commanders.

Rejected by the American foreign service, she talked her way into Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive, and was sent as into occupied France in August 1941, the first woman secret agent to be placed there. The never-before-told story of one of America’s greatest spies, a young woman from Baltimore called Virginia Hall.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell It’s sadly unsurprising that her postwar life, working for the C.I.A., was largely one of frustration: Her male colleagues felt threatened by her achievements, and she was frequently sidelined.

A woman of no importance by sonia purnell review