The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy [Hardcover]

Judith L. Pearson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

The secret story of Virginia Hall, America's greatest World War II spy heroine.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although Pearson's chronology wobbles early on and her prose is less than elegant, her account of Virginia Hall's work as a secret agent in German-occupied France is nevertheless riveting, thanks to the inherent drama of the time. Gifted with languages, Hall sought a career in Foreign Service in 1930s Europe, but a physical handicap (she had one wooden leg), her gender and her outspoken political views stymied her diplomatic ambitions. She escaped to London shortly after Germany's 1940 invasion of France and came to the attention of a secret British intelligence group that trained her in non-traditional sabotage techniques, cryptology and radio communication. As a newly minted secret agent, she returned to France, where she passed on information about German positions, transported downed Allied pilots and escaped prisoners to safety, oversaw the retrieval of supply drops and organized resistance fighters. Hall's espionage career ended with the allied victory and the dawn of the cold war, for which the CIA wanted a different breed of agent. Though commendable for its portrayal of Hall's unflagging courage and energy in dangerous and desperate conditions, the story is told in bland prose that fails to live up to the exceptional times it chronicles.
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Review

"Judith Pearson does a remarkable job of bringing one of America's greatest spies back to life. I highly recommend this story of derring-do and white knuckles suspense."-Patrick O'Donnell, Combat Historian and Author of Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs


Praise for Judith Pearson's Belly of the Beast: A POW's Inspiring True Story of Faith, Courage, and Survival aboard the Infamous WWII Japanese Hell Ship Oryoku Maru

"An inspiring look at one of WWII's darkest hours."--James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers

"Captures an experience almost too terrifying for words. To follow one man's ordeal in a Japanese torture ship is to travel through the bowels of hell."--Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking

"[A] searing tribute."--Senator John McCain

"Recommended for any public library with readers interested in World War II."--Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159228762X
• ISBN-13: 978-1592287628
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #778,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What I Never Knew about an Old Friend., May 14, 2006

By 

John F. Leich (Cornwall, CT, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy (Hardcover)

Virginia Hall was a friend and colleague of mine in 1950-51, when we both worked for the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), the parent organnization of Radio Free Europe, on the third floor of the Empire State Building in NYC. While we knew that she had worked with the O.S.S. duing World War II, we never knew the nature of her work in sabotaging the Nazi war effort, nor the extraordinarily dangerous nature of this work. Virginia, although perfectly sociable, was secretive about her private life. During the time she was working for NCFE, she married Paul Golliot, her Frcnch war time colleague, and never even told us anything about it. The extraordinary thing about Ms. Judith Pearson's book is that, without ever having met her or her husband, she is able to bring Virginia so completely back to life for those of us who knew her 55+ years ago! You can hear Virginia talking and even thinking in Pearson's pages. I have given this remarkable work a rating of "4", because of some sloppy editing which could easily have been avoided. There are allusions in what is supposed to be French or Spanish which in fact are neither in French nor Spanish!--and there are also some inaccuracies in the recounting of the military operations on the Western front abetween D- and VE-Days. It is high time our children's and grandchildren's generations knew something about what these heroic fighters like Virginia Hall did for all of us during that long struggle. John Foster Leich

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dramatic, little-known story of daring American woman spy in France in WWII, January 25, 2006

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy (Hardcover)

Virginia Hall was a Baltimore-born American Foreign Service officer in Lyon, France, when Hitler invaded in 1940. She quickly made the decision to use her familiarity with the region and contacts she had made as an espionage agent for the Allied forces. She worked effectively in coordinating and directing sabotage, assassinations, and other activities until the Nazis took over the southern part of France which they had allowed to remain nominally indepedent under Petain. After fleeing Lyon to Spain, Hall was brought to London by the British and American intelligence services she had been working with. They had come to prize her abilities in operating undetected, working with the French Resistanance, and causing damage to the German war machine in France. Recognizing that she would be a valuable agent working in France in the time leading up to D-Day, she was sent back into France. After the War, Hall received high awards for her incomparable espionage work from the British and American governments. Pearson--author of other works on personal stories from World War II--tells Hall's daring story in a quick-paced style occasionally going into historical background. An engaging commemoration for this little-known, but major World War II Allied spy.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story of Courage in a Very Bad Time, December 7, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy (Hardcover)

In Leo Marks excellent book 'Between Silk and Cyanide' he says that the average life of a radio operator in the resistance in France was six weeks. Virginia Hall was in France on two tours for a lot more than six weeks. She was the only female in the war to receive the Distinguished Service Cross. Born in 1906, she was not the beautiful young thing that gets featured so often in movies. In fact she even had a wooden leg and became known to the Germans as the 'Lady with the Limp.' She survived the war and worked for the CIA until the mandatory retirement age of sixty.

This book is her story, well told by Ms. Pearson who has written a number of other books, mostly on POWs. She has done a supurb job, able to capture the tone of the times while making Miss Hall's story stand out as one of great courage and accomplishment.