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A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE
by: Sarah Helm

List Price: £9.99

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780349119366
ISBN: 0349119368
Label: Abacus
Manufacturer: Abacus
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: June 01, 2006
Publisher: Abacus
Studio: Abacus
Sales Rank: 10106

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A riveting read at many levels
This is in all senses a fascinating book. So rare to read a factual acccount of the war written by a woman, about women. It benefits greatly from a throrough treatment of the human and personal aspects of life in these momentous times. It is at once a biography, a detective story, a spy story and a narrative of war time events, illuminated throughout by the tale of the enigmatic life and tragic end of Noor Inayat Khan. It is a very fitting tribute to the other courageous women and men of SOE. The only problem with this book is putting it down once you have started reading.

Rating:

- Excellent, unbiased and exceptionally well researched
There is so much to say about this book. It seems there have been several conspiricies put forward about Vera Atkins, yet this author has dispelled them with excellent research of her own. Vera Atkins was a major player in the SOE (Special Oerative Executives) F (France) section and undertook her own search to find out what had become of her agents. Her boss Buckmaster made some highly damaging decisions, that condemned the lives of many agents, ignoring key information and clues and giving the Germans information that endangered the lives of his agents. Atkins fought against the War office and government to discover the fate of her own people and for the recognition of the women agents who fought as FANY to be recognised as military with the ... Read More:

Rating:

- Fascinating account of SOE
Although the book is a biography of Vera Atkins, it focuses - understandably - on her time in F Section of the SOE, and the period she spent tracking down SOE agents who had gone missing or been captured in France post-war. As other reviewers have mentioned, it can be grim reading, but provides an unglamourised glimpse at the running of SOE, and the, sometimes horrendous, mistakes which were made there. It also presents a portrait of a woman who never allowed anyone to really know her, and this leaves both the author and the reader to make guesses about her emotions and her motives. I think this is where the book is at it's weakest, but this isn't the author's fault, and she presents the material available to her in as clear and coherent a manner ... Read More:

Rating:

- Unlocking the Hidden Doors of the Past
In "A Life in Secrets," Sarah Helm tells the riveting story of the courageous men and women of the SOE, the Special Operations Executive, who, during World War II, were parachuted into France, and thence into the arms of the Gestapo. The author also delves into the life of the woman who sent them there, the enigmatic Vera Atkins, who, as a perfect spy, covered her traces so expertly--and so completely--that the biographer has been left with more questions than there are answers.

Ms. Helm nevertheless engages the reader from the very first page, beginning with the recruitment and subsequent departure of the seventeen women and seventeen men who were to serve as organizers, couriers, and wireless transmitter operators of resistance circuits ... Read More:

Rating:

- Vera and SOE, the real SOE story
This is a marvellous book, but I will agree that because of the investigative style of uncovering the real life of Vera sometimes it can become muddling as more accurate evident comes to light to the author. Nevertheless, it is a grim account of some of SOE's biggest achievements and blunders. I wanted to scream with anger at the stupidity of Buckmaster ignoring coded messages which had many mistakes in them which signalled the agent's capture. These were ignored and Buckmaster and co carried on sending agents out and replying to the German's telling them of their plans and even asking the German's why their security code checks were not in place!! Of the few agents that survived they were furious at this after all the details of codes the agent required ... Read More:

Books : A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE