Nancy Wake - Peter FitzSimons

Nancy Wake

By Peter FitzSimons

  • Release Date: 2011-10-01
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 87 Ratings

Description

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spy

In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person.

As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille.

Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her "the white mouse" for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis. Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake's compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.

For fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Name: Lise comes the true story behind the historical fiction novels Code Name Helène and Liberation.

Reviews

  • While the life was amazing...the read was lackluster

    3
    By Lots of slots
    Who Nancy Wake was and how she came to be so important is a remarkable story. Unfortunately, the writer chose to write bare facts without any richness of emotion or description to make me “Feel” what it was like to live through such dangerous times.
  • Nancy Wake Biography Revised Edition

    5
    By photobyjb
    Incredible woman; incredible book! What a life! Much sadness; much happiness; much excitement. Recently, I have read several books set in Germany and Poland during the same time frame. Also great reads, but fiction. This book is the real thing. What a horrible time to be in Europe. I highly recommend this book to get a peek at what people endured.
  • Nancy Wake

    5
    By Oipe
    Riveting, exciting and so periodically human. I think this book should be the subject of a TV series. It would far out sell Downton Abby.
  • Quite a patriot!

    5
    By Sistergmw
    I never knew about Nancy Wake until I read her story. I watched her interviewed on YouTube as well. A magnificent and brave woman, absolutely fearless, loyal and dedicated to freedom. She was outraged when seeing innocent people suffering and was determined to do anything she could to help and she did. A book so riveting, I had to keep reading until I finished. Nancy was a true patriot and heroine. May she be rewarded in Heaven!
  • Inspired

    5
    By the Dixon Family
    I’ve read many biographies but this is the first one that has left me life-changed. Sure, she was an amazing partisan but something about who she is (was) as a person, her character, has left me thinking, thinking, thinking. The death of Henri was just agonizing. Peter, I know this is one of your early books but all them I just cannot put down, including this one !!!