The Lost Girls of Paris

The SOE, or Special Operations Executive, was an English intelligence agency that was authorized by Churchill to “set Europe ablaze,” using subversion and sabotage during WWII. Eleanor Trigg is the fictional head of a program within the SOE to train women as radio transmitters, theorizing that they are less likely to be suspected by the Germans than male operatives. But at one point, almost an entire network  based in and around Paris begins to disappear, and one operative’s radio transmissions become erratic. Eleanor tries to warn the Director that the girls may have been compromised, but he dismisses her fears. Jenoff does an impressive job of placing the reader in the middle of 1944 Occupied France, with her description of the brutal treatment of the French by the Germans and the French (Vichy) government. She suggests that the network of informants was considered expendable by the English government, in order to mislead the enemy, a horrifying premise. It’s an excellent read for anyone interested in WWII…