Through Enemy Lines
‘The Spy Who Loved,’ by Clare Mulley
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/books/review/the-spy-who-loved-by-clare-mulley.html
Christine Granville was one of the bravest, toughest and strangest secret agents of World War II. Her feats of derring-do included acting as a courier in Nazi-occupied Europe, parachuting into France in support of the Allied invasion and rescuing three of her comrades from certain execution. She was said to be Winston Churchill’s favorite spy — a considerable accolade given how much Britain’s wartime prime minister liked spies. She may have been the model for Vesper Lynd, the female agent in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, “Casino Royale.” She won medals for bravery from both Britain and France. Men found her irresistible, and she did very little to resist them.
Yet this woman, so ripe for Hollywood hagiography, is almost unknown today.