Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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

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.

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.

All the reviewers are correct about Virginia Hall being an extraordinary person. No debate here. My only rather large disappointment with the book has to do with the author's writing style. It resembles the style of pulp romance novels on sale at your local supermarket. For me, at least, this gets in the way of completely enjoying the book. I also got the impression that the author projected what she thought Hall's feelings were about incidents so incidental it didn't seem possible anyone would know. Credibility.

Here's an example of the author's style from page 27:
"The tail end of spring greeted Virginia on her arrival in Paris. As May slid into June, and the Parisian summer began, solace washed over her. The quintessental French conversations, bouquinistes selling books and postcards at stands along the seine, throaty French tunes pouring out of cabaret doors...etc, etc."

It's painful for me, at least, to read prose like this on such an incredibly interesting life.

It is amazing to me that anyone can last an entire war as a spy... but to do it with a handicap is just phenomenal. Virginia Hall did not let her physical disability get in her way one little bit. She'll certainly be an example I would use in the future who is facing a physical hardship and says that they cannot do a certain task. When you read some of the things that this woman had to do in order to stay undercover, you'll just be blown away. (I was most impressed with her dental fillings). This is a definite read for any adult.

This is a very interesting and readable book. Though I remember World War II vividly and have read about it ever since it ended, I had never heard of this remarkable lady. She makes a better model for younger women today than the current stars of movie and music fame. This is not the greatest literary work available, and it is certainly a one-sided view of the war, but it was informative and rather well documented. I plan to give it to my teenage granddaughter. She can use it as a book report and will enjoy the true story of an able, fascinating American woman.

Kudos to the author, Judith Pearson. I almost always prefer first person accounts of those who lived through WWII. However, this book gripped me throughout the narrative. This would make a wonderful movie with Virginia Hall played by an actress of Cate Blanchett's caliber. Exhaustively researched and well written. Thank you Ms. Pearson, I'll be looking for your next book!

Virginia Hall was the daughter of a well-to-do Marylander with no need to get directly involved in WWII. Instead, she played a major role in the French Resistance, leading up to 1,500 men in attacks on isolated German troops, locate and assist in parachute drops, send wireless messages (particularly dangerous, given the Germans' emphasis on quickly locating the source of any signals), helping downed Allied fliers escape to Spain, sabotaging rail lines. Prior to D-Day the Germans put out a "Wanted" poster on Virginia, along with a description. This forced her temporarily out of France, via climbing the Pyrennees with a guide and two Allied fliers, only to be imprisoned for 20 days until the American Consulate got word and was able to help. All this with a wooden lower leg - cut off as a result of a hunting accident.

Virginia's original goal was to be an American Foreign Service Officer - however, this was precluded by her hunting accident, leading her to resign her clerical position to help the French through driving an ambulance during WWII's early days. She then was recruited as a British agent (spoke French fluently), trained (only two of the twelve women passed) and returned to France. Collaborators on both sides were typically motivated by money (France was in a depression also); even a Jesuit priest became involved as a double agent - for the Germans.

After WWII, Virginia was awarded the DSC (turned down presentation by President Truman to remain anonymous), married one of her French fellow agents, and "settled down" in the CIA until retirement.

A very heroic and impressive woman whom I never would have known about without "The Wolves at the Door."

As a old history teacher (retired)I really enjoyed this book. These are the stories that are disapearing by the thousands a day. Judith Pearson did a very good job with her research for this book. The comment in the book that Virginia Hall never told her story, because no one asked hold very true with people coming out of WWII. This gives a fresh new look that the spy game in France during the war was not all blowing bridges and rails, but developing groups that were safe havens. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about Vichy France during the war.

I loved this book! I have always wanted to know about the role the French Resistance played in World War II and now I know about it in captivating detail! Virginia Hall was an incredibly brave, compassionate and intuitive woman and I found myself having to take a break from the book occasionally because Ms. Hall often became entangled in some very tense situations. This book was engaging from the first, well written, easy to read and hard to put down!