A Life in Secrets, Sarah Helm
A Life in Secrets, Sarah Helm
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A Life in Secrets
Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII

Author: Sarah Helm

Narrator: Nicola Barber

Unabridged: 19 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/23/2018

Synopsis

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 of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe. Brimming with intrigue, heroics, honor, and the horrors of war, A Life in Secrets is the story of a grand, elusive woman and a tour de force of investigative journalism.

About The Author

SARAH HELM has been a journalist for more than twenty years. She was a reporter and feature writer on the Sunday Times before becoming a founding member of the Independent in 1986. She was the Independent's Diplomatic Editor and later became the Middle East and then European Correspondent for the same paper. Sarah Helm is the recipient of the British Press Award of Specialist Writer of the Year and was awarded the Laurence Stern Fellowship by the Washington Post. She lives in London, England.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tim on April 10, 2017

My reading program for this month is to immerse myself in the world of female agents operating in France during WW2. I read one book on the subject which got me more interested in that world. One book, as we know, leads to another. I was overwhelmed by the courage of these women and want to know mor......more

Goodreads review by Violet on April 27, 2016

An utterly compelling read about Vera Atkins and the female SOE agents she helped send to France. Especially moving is her relentless attempt at the end of the war to discover what happened to those agents who had vanished from all official records. At this point the book becomes a gripping detectiv......more

Goodreads review by Yvonne on September 17, 2011

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......more

Goodreads review by Jim on August 26, 2016

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......more

Goodreads review by Pam on August 12, 2019

The subject of this book is the woman who became pivotal to the importance of 'F' section, the part of the World War II Special Operations Excutive (SOE) who trained and managed agents to be dropped into France to liaise with and recruit locals, act as couriers or wireless operators and manage circu......more

Quotes

“Brilliant. . . . One can only admire the way that Helm put together all the pieces of the puzzle.” —The Washington Post“Fascinating. . . . Compelling. . . . Gripping. . . . A stupendous job of reporting.” —The New York Times“Helm's account is a chilling reminder of the ghastliness of WWII.” —Entertainment Weekly“A Life in Secrets is a work of history that is at once a compelling thriller, an intriguing mystery, and a biography of bravery. . . . Better than CSI because it is all true and inspiring.” —Tina Brown

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