Women War Spies

Anna Cavanaugh is a restless young widow and brilliant French teacher at an all-girls school in Washington, DC. Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan. Donovan has faith in her - and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison.

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and - despite her prosthetic leg - helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it.

Ex-Army Civil Affairs specialist Jo Gunning is a loner. No commitments. No fixed address. She's enjoying her anonymity in Virginia when she crosses paths with a runaway teenage girl in need. Assisting the girl in getting home leads to a phone call for help, and a claim from the girl that her father is holding her hostage. As Jo searches for answers, she finds that nothing is what it seems, and no one is telling the truth.

New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini delights fans by transforming true events into riveting historical fiction. Set during the Civil War, The Spymistress introduces little-known Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia woman who used a vast spy network to steal Confederate secrets for the Union. But her next mission would prove the ultimate test of her mettle: infiltrate the infamous Confederate Libby Prison and orchestrate a daring escape.

October, 1952. The war is over, but for CIA officer Miriam Becker, memories of the horrors she witnessed remain jagged in her mind. While vacationing in Argentina, recovering from a mission that nearly killed her, she's seeing more ghosts from the past than the sights. When a longtime family friend and fellow operative, Jake Devlin, tracks her down, Miriam is forced to push everything to the back of her mind for the next mission: help a highly prized and heavily guarded rocket scientist defect from Soviet-controlled East Berlin—right out from under the KGB's nose.

Jeannie Rousseau appeared to be just a highly educated girl, fluent in five languages, graduating at the top of her class at the elite university, the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. She had no idea she would become one of the most amazing women in WWII. When the German troops invaded France, Rousseau fought back—using nothing other than her gifted mind. Jeannie Rousseau bravely took on the Gestapo, posing as an ally and sympathizer to extract the highly sensitive, secret plans of the Nazi party.

In 1943, movie producer Henrik Zoltan approaches Amelie Blake under the guise of offering the Hollywood star a leading part in his upcoming film, but he has a more meaningful role in mind. Amelie’s homeland of Sweden declared neutrality in the war, but Stockholm has become the “Casablanca of the North.” When top-secret atomic research goes missing in Sweden, the Allied forces scramble to recover the files before they fall into Nazi hands.

The Widow Spy is the firsthand account of a true Cold War spy operation in Moscow told exclusively by the CIA case officer who lived this experience. Martha D. Peterson was one of the first women to be assigned to Moscow, a very difficult operational environment. Her story begins in Laos during the Vietnam War where she accompanied her husband, a CIA officer. She describes their life in a small city in Laos, ending with the tragic death of her husband. Then her own 30-year career begins in Moscow.

In January 2003, 28-year-old GCHQ translator Katharine Gun received an email from the US National Security Agency that would turn her world upside down. The message requested Katharine’s assistance in co-ordinating an illegal US-UK spy operation which would secure UN authorisation for the Iraq invasion. Horrified, she decided to leak the information to the British press. Katharine’s decision would change her life forever, as she was arrested under the Official Secrets Act whilst becoming a cause célèbre for political activists.

The Second World War changed the course of modern history. It is filled with incredible stories of daring risks and exceptional struggles, but in the popular imagination, these stories are more often than not the stories of men. There is, however, a hidden treasure trove of untold stories of heroic women who have risked their lives in the monumental battle against fascism. We’ve heard of women who became nurses treating soldiers with battlefield injuries, partisans who fought occupying armies, and skilled laborers who worked in wartime industries.

This is the story of Esther Simpson, a remarkable woman history has largely forgotten, but whose selfless actions left an indelible mark on the cultural and intellectual landscape of the modern world. Forgoing marriage, family, even, it seems, a private life, she committed her whole life resettling academic refugees before, during and after World War Two. She thought of these refugees as her family and by the end of her life could count among her 'children'.

It’s 1942 in Washington, DC. Louise Pearlie is now a chief file clerk at the legendary OSS, the precursor to the CIA, and enjoys being an independent working woman despite wartime privations. But a casual friendship struck up with Alessa di Luca, a secretive war refugee, sucks Louise into a dangerous game of mafia bosses, Nazi spies, banished royalty, and Sicilian aristocracy - placing not only her job but her life in jeopardy.

On a bitterly cold night in December, 1943, government girl Louise Pearlie and her friend Joe Prager are enjoying a quiet drink in the Baron Steuben Inn, when a bloodstained body is discovered behind the bar. Although the victim had been a regular customer, no one seems to know anything about him. When it turns out there is a link to Louise’s top-secret work at the OSS, she is ordered to find out as much as possible about the murder while keeping the connection secret from those involved, including the investigating police detective.

When James Bond was still in diapers, Virginia Hall was behind enemy lines, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Hitler’s henchmen. Virginia was the baddest broad in any room she walked into. When the State Department proved to be a sexist boys’ club that wouldn’t let her in, she became a spy for the British. This boss lady helped arm and train the French Resistance and organized sabotage missions. There was just one problem: The Butcher of Lyon, a notorious Gestapo commander, was after her. But Virginia’s classmates didn’t call her the Fighting Blade for nothing.

The year is 1861, the eve of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. For Kate Warn, the first female private detective in American history, the only assignment tougher than exposing a conspiracy to assassinate the new president is training her new mentee, Hattie MacLaughlin, in the art of detection. The two women’s mission to save the president takes them from the granges of rural Maryland to the heart of secessionist high society, and sets them on a collision course that could alter the course of history.

Anna Hall was a beautiful and skilled Second World War air force operative, guiding RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain - before a bomb killed her sister and left her disfigured. In the aftermath, haunted by her failure to keep her sister safe, Anna retreats to a posting in the countryside - until a chance encounter spins her life in a new direction.

Young widow Louise Pearlie seizes a chance to escape the typewriters and files of the Office of Strategic Services, the United States’ World War II spy agency, when she’s asked to investigate a puzzling postcard referred to the OSS by the US Censor. She heads off to St. Leonard, Maryland, to talk to the postcard’s recipient, one Leroy Martin. But what seemed like a straightforward mission to Louise soon becomes complicated.

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie is asked to review the file usage of a missing analyst from the Office of Strategic Services - the United States’ wartime intelligence agency - only to learn he’d drowned in the Tidal Basin days before. The OSS confirms it was an accident, and Louise is sent back to her regular job in the file rooms. Her time spent investigating Paul Hughes at least has one positive outcome, though: Louise meets a young woman in the OSS Reading Room, who asks her to join her “salon".

February, 1944. Washington, DC. With the war entering its most dangerous phase, Louise Pearlie is thrilled to be reassigned to the London office of the OSS. But in order to take up her new post, she must make a perilous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the SS Amelia Earhart. Accompanying her on the voyage to Liverpool is an eclectic group of passengers, including the aloof Blanche Bryant, whose husband, Eddie, died in mysterious circumstances on the ship’s voyage out to New York, three months before.

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie has a new job inside the OSS - the Office of Strategic Services: recruiting German prisoners of war for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany. It’s a big chance for her, and Louise hopes she can finally escape her filing and typing duties. With the job comes two new colleagues: Alice Osborne, a propaganda expert, and Merle Ellison, a forger from Texas who just happens to speak fluent German. But when the three arrive at Fort Meade to interview the first German POWs to arrive there, their mission is beset by complications.