A Life in Secrets
Subtitle: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII
By: Sarah Helm.
Edition: 1st ed. in the United States of America
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 528
ISBN-13: 9780385508452
Subjects: Atkins, Vera, 1908-2000.; Great Britain. Special Operations Executive.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Secret service -- Great Britain.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Missing in action -- France.; Intelligence officers -- Great Britain -- Biography.; Women intelligence officers -- Great Britain -- Biography.
Genres: Biography.
Other titles: Vera Atkins and the missing agents of WWII
Description: Publisher description for A life in secrets : Vera Atkins and the missing agents of WWII / Sarah Helm. Once rumored to have been the inspiration for Ian Fleming's Miss Moneypenny, Vera Atkins climbed her way to the top in the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, Britain's secret service created to help the resistance efforts in the Nazi-occupied countries. Throughout the war, Atkins recruited and trained the agents for the SOE's French Section. By war's end, however, twelve of Atkins's most cherished female spies had not returned. Making it her personal mission to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines, she rigorously traced their horrific final journeys. But while the woman who carried out this astonishing search appeared quintessentially English, she was nothing of the sort. As we follow Vera Atkins through the devastation of post-war Germany, we learn Atkins herself covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past. In A LIFE IN SECRETS Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera Atkins's many veils. Drawing on recently released government files and unprecedented access to family papers, Helm vividly reconstructs a complex and extraordinary life.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Originally published: London : Little, Brown, 2005.