Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Lost Girls of Paris
Pam Jenoff
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Lost Girls of Paris
Pam Jenoff
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Lost Girls of Paris, by Pam Jenoff, is about “the girls,” women who trained and sent to France to cripple the Nazi war machine in various ways. They were never credited nor recognized for their heroic efforts. It’s mostly through Grace and Eleanor and Maria that we learn their true story..
In 1946, Grace finds photographs in an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station and her curiosity takes over. Who were these women? Author Jenoff takes us to Scotland in 1944, where the girls are in training to be fluent in French, to shoot a gun, and to hide cleverly. It was Eleanor’s idea to use women in place of men, since the men were all away fighting and women would be less obvious as they roamed the towns of France. Although Marie has a daughter, Tess, she realizes this task is the most important thing for her and her daughter’s future. Marie is flown to the French countryside with her wireless radio.
Also In 1946, Grace runs into Mark, her dead husband’s best friend. She tells him of the photos and about Eleanor Trigg. Eleanor had worked for Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Mark suggests they go to Washington DC to investigate.
In the French countryside, Marie meets her former classmate Josie, but she must part with her to meet with Vesper, the head of the whole operation in this part of France. Marie speaks excellent French; he does not. They are attracted to one another. This is dangerous. She suggests they leave messages in a local bookstore and hide them between the volumes. Marie’s safe house is under the noses of the Germans who drink coffee at a café across the street. Marie is in danger many times, but talks her way out of it. She once claimed she had her period to avoid being frisked by Germans at the train station.
When Grace goes to Washington DC, she talks to a sister of one of the twelve girls. The sister, Annie, tells Grace they all died at the hands of the Germans. Eleanor believed they had been sold out by someone. Marie has placed a detonator under an essential bridge because the man who had been chosen has not shown up. After the bridge blows up, and after the Allied invasion, no agent will be safe. Marie hides in the cellar of a brothel, and Eleanor receives a strange message on her wireless that Marie is in danger. But she can do nothing.
Will Marie and the other female agents be captured by the Germans? Will Eleanor discover what happened to them? And who gave them away? Author Jenoff uses her background in International Affairs and a Masters degreee in History from Cambridge to keep us in suspense with accurate details. Find this fascinating novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
In 1946, Grace finds photographs in an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station and her curiosity takes over. Who were these women? Author Jenoff takes us to Scotland in 1944, where the girls are in training to be fluent in French, to shoot a gun, and to hide cleverly. It was Eleanor’s idea to use women in place of men, since the men were all away fighting and women would be less obvious as they roamed the towns of France. Although Marie has a daughter, Tess, she realizes this task is the most important thing for her and her daughter’s future. Marie is flown to the French countryside with her wireless radio.
Also In 1946, Grace runs into Mark, her dead husband’s best friend. She tells him of the photos and about Eleanor Trigg. Eleanor had worked for Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Mark suggests they go to Washington DC to investigate.
In the French countryside, Marie meets her former classmate Josie, but she must part with her to meet with Vesper, the head of the whole operation in this part of France. Marie speaks excellent French; he does not. They are attracted to one another. This is dangerous. She suggests they leave messages in a local bookstore and hide them between the volumes. Marie’s safe house is under the noses of the Germans who drink coffee at a café across the street. Marie is in danger many times, but talks her way out of it. She once claimed she had her period to avoid being frisked by Germans at the train station.
When Grace goes to Washington DC, she talks to a sister of one of the twelve girls. The sister, Annie, tells Grace they all died at the hands of the Germans. Eleanor believed they had been sold out by someone. Marie has placed a detonator under an essential bridge because the man who had been chosen has not shown up. After the bridge blows up, and after the Allied invasion, no agent will be safe. Marie hides in the cellar of a brothel, and Eleanor receives a strange message on her wireless that Marie is in danger. But she can do nothing.
Will Marie and the other female agents be captured by the Germans? Will Eleanor discover what happened to them? And who gave them away? Author Jenoff uses her background in International Affairs and a Masters degreee in History from Cambridge to keep us in suspense with accurate details. Find this fascinating novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.