whatcathyreadnext

World War 2 London. Spies. Espionage. Count me in! As a lover of historical fiction and someone always on the lookout for a new historical mystery series, I’m thrilled to be kicking off the blog tour for London Spies by S. J. Slagle.

I’m delighted to say I have a fascinating guest post by the author about the real life exploits of amazing women who worked in military intelligence in World War 2.

Win Plus…there’s a giveaway with a chance to win a $5 Amazon giftcard.

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About the Book

Phyllis Bowden, a secretary at the American Embassy, is catapulted into the limelight when the Military Attache is arrested for espionage and her boss, the Assistant Military Attache, assumes the position. The arrest throws suspicion on everyone at the Embassy, particularly the Military Attache’s secretary whose attempted suicide convinces Phyllis to be more curious about what really happened. With bombs still falling on a devastated city, Phyllis begins asking questions but she never imagined the dark underbelly of diplomacy. Entering a shadowy world of cryptic messages, secret rendezvous and dangerous men, Phyllis learns quickly that a safety net doesn’t exist and if she wants to survive, she better figure out the game fast.

Format: ebook, paperback (196 pp.) Publisher:
Published: 9^th May 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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Guest Post: ‘Women in Military Intelligence’ by S. J. Slagle

Was my cousin a spy?

Women have long had varied positions with the United States military, but not much information has been forthcoming regarding women in military intelligence. What did they do? What sort of intelligence was collected?

While conducting research for a novel loosely based on the wartime experiences of a cousin, I uncovered the stories of three other women who made significant contributions toward the Allied efforts in World War II.

My cousin had, more than likely, been with the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. My family learned of her involvement with the OSS after she had passed away. She had worked in the Pentagon and gone over to London at the end of the war to work as a civilian contractor with the War Department. She was placed in the Office of the Military Attaché at the American Embassy and later went on to Oslo, Norway when the war was over. Her official title was stenographer, although she was upgraded to research analyst and later intelligence officer when she joined the CIG, Central Intelligence Group, which evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency. Her wartime experiences were cloaked in secrecy during her career and life. She didn’t speak of sensitive topics and took her oath of confidentiality to the grave.

Most people have heard of Mata Hari, but how many remember Claire Phillips, Virginia Hall and Amy Elizabeth Thorpe Pack?

Claire Phillips was never trained in military intelligence. A mother from Portland, Oregon, Claire (Clara Taste) grew up a devout Christian Scientist. An outgoing girl craving adventure, Claire ran away with a travelling circus passing through town. Her mother brought her home, but Claire was an entertainer who loved to sing and dance. She soon signed with a stock company touring the Far East eventually ending in the Philippines. In 1942, Claire witnessed American prisoners of war staggering by on the Bataan Death March and vowed she would try to help the prisoners. Hocking her jewellery, she started the exclusive Tsubaki Club in Manila frequented by Japanese officers and civilians. Claire’s code name in the smuggling business she conducted was “High Pockets” because she carried notes in her bra, notes containing intelligence pried from loose Japanese lips. She used her Manila contacts to smuggle money and medicine to the prisoners of the infamous Cabanatuan Prison, but eventually her time ran out. She was arrested, imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to twelve years in a women’s correctional institution on the island. Rescued when the camp was liberated in 1945, Claire went on to receive honors for her service to the military. “I was an American Spy” was a popular movie made in Hollywood about her. Claire Phillips lived out the rest of her life in Portland.

Virginia Hall Goillot was born in Baltimore. She was university educated with a desire to join the Foreign Service and was placed in the American Embassy in Warsaw as a clerk in 1940. It was during her next assignment in Turkey when she lost part of her leg due to an accident. Still, Virginia continued her work wearing a prosthetic she affectionately named Cuthbert. When World War II broke out, Virginia joined the ambulance corps in France. Making her way to England, she volunteered to serve with British Special Operations, which trained her in weapons, resistance and communications. Virginia became a legendary intelligence officer with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and then CIA. Her exploits were well known and she was the only woman to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The “Limping Lady” continued her intelligence work with resistance groups in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Virginia Hall retired from the CIA in 1966.

Amy Elizabeth Thorpe grew up travelling the world with her family and U.S. Marine Corps officer father. Gorgeous and well bred, Amy attracted men like bees to honey. An illicit affair brought about her marriage to Arthur Pack, a British Embassy secretary and when Arthur transferred to Madrid on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, Amy became involved in covert operations such as smuggling rebel Nationalists to safety. When Amy and her husband moved on to Warsaw, she was recruited by British intelligence and began a career trading sexual favours for information. Some say Amy deserves credit with helping to give the Allies the edge over the Nazis with the Enigma cipher machine when she learned crucial intelligence from a Polish diplomat. She and Arthur travelled to New York where she was given the code name of Cynthia. Her cover was a journalist in Washington, D.C. where Amy gleaned information about the Italian Navy’s code and cipher books contributing to British victories in the Mediterranean. In 1942, she worked with Bill Donovan, head of the OSS on her most famous mission. Working with a French press attaché and an expert safe cracker, Amy was able to steal French naval ciphers used to help the Allies in North Africa. She once said, “Wars are not won by respectable methods.”

Wars are won by every method possible and every soldier who helped the Allied powers win in World War II deserves to be credited openly. So thank you to the women in military intelligence. All your exploits are not currently known, but perhaps one day they will be. If not, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Sources

“Claire Phillips: Forgotten Hero,” 1859, Oregon’s Magazine, Sig Unander, January 1, 2016 Virginia Hall: The Courage and Daring of the Limping Lady, http://www.cia.gov, October 8, 2015 “Amy Elizabeth Thorpe: WWII’s Mata Hari, www.historynet.com, June 12, 2006.

Teaser - London Spies by SJ Slagle

About the Author

S. J. Slagle is the celebrated author of the Sherlock and Me series and the Phyllis Bowden series. A teacher and nonfiction writer for part of her career, she taught in Florida, California and Nevada. She also writes western romances as Jeanne Harrell including the bestselling series Rancher, The Westerners and These Nevada Boys with picturesque settings in the wild west of Nevada.

Connect with S. J. Slagle

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

I really do not know what happened this week….

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Thurston (ebook)

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston’s beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose.

You Don’t Know Me by Imran Mahmood (ebook)

An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder. Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech. He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe. But he thinks that if he’s going to go down for life, he might as well go down telling the truth. There are eight pieces of evidence against him. As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in our hands. We, the reader – member of the jury – must keep an open mind till we hear the end of his story. His defence raises many questions… but at the end of the speeches, only one matters: Did he do it?

The Visitor at Anningley Hall by Chris Thorndycroft (ebook)

“The door,” Elisa mumbled. “He was trying to open the front door.” “What on earth for? Was he sleepwalking?” “Oh, God!” said Elisa, her arms squeezing Roland tight to her chest. “He was trying to let it in!”

In 1904, M. R. James published The Mezzotint; a macabre short story about a picture that has a chilling tale of its own. This novella explores the horrifying events told within that picture.

Anningley Hall – a large country house in Essex – is home to Arthur Francis and his wife Elisa. Arthur is obsessed with his new printing press and so consumed by his desire to make a name for himself as a mezzotint artist that he is oblivious to his wife’s increasing desperation and loneliness. Elisa is convinced that something sinister is coming for their infant son and will stop at nothing to protect him. When she discovers a disturbing secret pertaining to her husband’s past, she begins to question the safety of their home as a refuge from evil. And their three-year-old son is in contact with a dark presence that seems intent on entering Anningley Hall…

Charlemagne by in60Learning (ebook, review copy of in60Learning)

Charlemagne’s name means “Charles the Great,” a title he earned after an impressive life filled with military conquests. After the fall of the Roman Empire, invaders came from all sides, and Charlemagne fought out of loyalty to his people and the Catholic church. While he led many campaigns that helped to reunite Europe during the “Migratory Period,” Charlemagne primarily aimed just to claim land where he and his people—the Franks—could live in peace. His life inspired countless tales, including the legends that he was twenty feet tall, that he slept under the guard of 100 armed knights, and that he rose from the dead to aid in the Crusades. While these fantastical tales are false, the truth is equally fantastic: by the end of his life, Charlemagne had been king of the Franks, king of the Lombards, and the first emperor of the newly formed Holy Roman Empire.

Discontents: The Disappearance of a Young Radical by James Wallace Birch (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Emory is a jobless millennial who refuses to conform. When his anti-corporate Internet ramblings attract a following, he finds unlikely fame and a sense of purpose. But his fame draws the wrong kind of attention. Forced to take on an assumed identity, Emory finds himself trapped by the words he’s written. When he meets Fletcher, a rich baby boomer longing for youthful idealism, the two embark on a plan to cause mayhem. But Emory soon thinks someone is trying to get between him, Fletcher, and their plans.

Unsure of who to trust, Emory is suspicious of the people who know him best. Having burned every bridge back to the life he once lived, he must find the strength to face the mistakes of his past if he has any chance at a future.

El Hacho by Luis Carrasco (ebook, review copy courtesy of Epoque Press)

The brilliant debut novel by Luis Carrasco, El Hacho is a timeless evocation of inheritance, duty and our relationship to the landscape that defines us. Set in the stark beauty of the Andalusian mountains, it tells the story of Curro, an olive farmer determined to honour his family tradition in the face of drought, deluge and the lucrative temptations of a rapidly modernising Spain. Wonderfully crafted, El Hacho is a poignant and compelling story of struggle and hope.

The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire by Brian Keaney (ebook, NetGalley)

A visitor calls with a gift and a message from the past in this literary, historical novel. In 1802 Thomas de Quincey, a young man from a comfortable middle-class background who would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers of his day, collapsed on Oxford Street and was discovered by a teenage prostitute who brought him back to her room and nursed him to health. It was the beginning of a relationship that would introduce Thomas to a world just below the surface of London’s polite society, where pleasure was a tradeable commodity and opium could seem the only relief from poverty. Yet it is also a world where love might blossom, and goodness survive. The lives of a street girl, an aspiring writer, and a freed slave cross and re-cross the slums of London in this novel about the birth of passion, the burden of addiction, and the consolations of literature.

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans (eARC, NetGalley)

What do you do next, after you’ve changed the world?

It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club – an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade. Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women’s Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing – nothing – since then has had the same depth, the same excitement. Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea – but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie’s militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for.

Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight.

The Concubine’s Child by Carol Jones (eARC, NetGalley)

In 1930s Malaysia, sixteen-year-old Yu Lan is in love with her best friend, Ming, whose father owns one of the busiest kopi shops in Petaling Street. But Ming’s family don’t see the apothecary’s daughter as a suitable wife – for Yu Lan’s father, Lim, spends more time playing mahjong than selling herbal remedies. It’s not long before Lim makes a terrible decision that will change Yu Lan’s life forever, selling her as a concubine to the wealthy, ageing Towkay Chan who is desperate for a male heir.

The consequences of Lim’s betrayal resonate through four generations and into the present day, where Yu Lan’s great-grandson, Nick, is searching for his lost family history. His wife, Sarah, begins to be very afraid of what he will find as past and present meld into one.

The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle (eARC, NetGalley)

A king, his lover and his lover’s wife. One is a killer.

In the autumn of 1615 scandal rocks the Jacobean court when a celebrated couple are imprisoned on suspicion of murder. She is young, captivating and from a notorious family. He is one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom. Some believe she is innocent; others think her wicked or insane. He claims no knowledge of the murder. The king suspects them both, though it is his secret at stake.

Who is telling the truth? Who has the most to lose? And who is willing to commit murder?

The Death Chamber (The Detective’s Daughter #6) by Lesley Thomson (ebook, review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Queen’s Jubilee, 1977: Cassie Baker sees her boyfriend kissing another girl at the village disco. Upset, she heads home alone and is never seen again.

Millennium Eve, 1999: DCI Paul Mercer finds Cassie’s remains in a field. Now he must prove the man who led him there is guilty.

When Mercer’s daughter asks Stella Darnell for help solving the murder, Stella see echoes of herself. Another detective’s daughter. With her sidekick sleuth, Jack, Stella moves to Winchcombe, where DCI Mercer and his prime suspect have been playing cat and mouse for the past eighteen years…

The Million Dollar Duchesses: How America’s Heiresses Seduced the Aristocracy by Julie Ferry (ebook, review copy courtesy of Aurum Press)

Power, scandal, glamour, fame…

On 6th November 1895, the beautiful and brilliant heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt was wedded to the near-insolvent Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough in a dazzling yet miserable match – it glittered above all others for high society’s marriage brokers who, in this single year, forged a series of spectacular, and lucrative, transatlantic unions.

The bankrupt and ailing British aristocracy was suddenly injected with all the wealth and glamour of America’s newest dynasties. Millions of dollars changed hands as fame, money, power and privilege were all at play. Brimful of scandal, illicit affairs, spurned loves and unexpected tragedy, The Million Dollar Duchesses reveals the closed-door bargaining which led to these most influential matches and how America’s heiresses shook-up British high society for ever.

An Unsuitable Match by Joanna Trollope (hardcover, giveaway prize courtesy of London Book Fair)

Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson—a wonderful, sensitive man who is head-over-heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn’t the first time for either of them. And when you marry later in life there are a lot more people to consider. Like Rose’s daughter, Laura, who remembers her mom’s first marriage and doesn’t want her to get hurt again. Or the twins, Emmy and Nat, who are used to their mom being there for them whenever and for whatever they need. And then there’s Tyler’s children: Mallory, a young actress who craves her father’s attention; and Seth, whose San Francisco bakery is just taking off and needs all the money he can get. Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of Entanglement by Katy Mahood, the compelling story of two couples and the interconnectedness of our lives.

Tuesday – I introduced this month’s Buchan of the Month – Mr. Standfast – freely admitting this is one of my favourite books by John Buchan.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next. I also took part in the blog tour for Swan’s Road by Garth Pettersen with a spotlight on this historical novel full of 11^th century Viking action.

Thursday – My Throwback Thursday post was a review of The Things We Learn When We’re Dead by Charlie Laidlaw, a quirky, imaginative book that has been languishing in my author review pile for far too long.

Friday – I shared my review of All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church, an emotional story set in the 1960s about a young woman’s life as a Las Vegas showgirl and leaving behind a traumatic childhood.

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 39 out of 156 books read, 5 more than last week
Classics Club Challenge – 12 out of 50 books read, same as last week
NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Silver) – 12 ARCs read and reviewed out of 25, 1 more than last week
From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last update
2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 3 out of 12 books read, same as last week
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 18 books out of 50 read, 3 more than last week
When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 6 out of 12 books read, same as last update
What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 0 out of 6 books read, same as last week
Buchan of the Month – 2 out of 12 books read, same as last week