The Spy Who Loved: The secrets and lives of Christine Granville, Britain's first female special agent of WWII [Hardcover]

'compulsively readable...Clare Mulley has done a dogged piece of detective work piecing together Christine s ultimately tragic life. Understandably obsessed by her charismatic subject, she has written a thrilling book, and paid overdue homage to a difficult woman who seized life with both hands.' --The Sunday Telegraph

'Clare Mulley brings to life a glamorous, swashbuckling heroine...' --The Sunday Times

'Mulley s fastidiously researched tome provides the most detailed picture yet.' --Sunday Express

'Mulley gets to the heart of a charismatic and fearless woman.'
--Lancashire Evening Post

"she remains a fascinating figure...worthy of this weighty biography." --Word magazine

"An extraordinary life...This is a nerve-shredding read." --Lola Sinclair, The Lady

"...splendid...Happily with biographers like Mulley, the latest in a line of talented writers to seize on a splendid subject, Christine Granville remains as alive, well and compelling as ever; a figure of radiant magnetism, ruthless determination and a courage that as several of them attested could make a strong man shudder." --5 star review by Miranda Seymour, Daily Telegraph

"This is a remarkable life and expertly handled by Mulley here." --Newmarket Journal, Suffolk Free Press, Bury Free Press

"An incredible biography of an incredible woman" --
The Leader (Chester)

"Towards the end of this sympathetic though unvarnished account Clare Mulley pithily sums her up thus She lived boundlessly, as generous as she could be cruel, prepared to give her life at any moment for a worthy cause but rarely sparing a thought for the many casualties who fell in her wake." --Christopher Sylvester, 4 star review in Daily Express

"Clare Mulley tells her story with a bravura that matches Christine s charismatic character."
--SAGA magazine

"Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, Clare Mulley s The Spy Who Loved is a fine account of Christine Granville s war, told with skill and care." --The Literary Review

"It s an incredible biography of an incredible woman." --Darlington and Stockton Times Evening News (Norwich)

"Mulley tells her story with brio, and this book is just the job for anyone who loved Ben Macintyre s Agent Zigzag."
--Voyager (BMI)

"…assiduously researched, passionately written and highly atmospheric biography…a scholarly and tautly written account of secret operation in occupied Europe." --The Economist

"This is the first book about her for more than 30 years and it painstakingly disentangles her complex story and equally complex character...Clare Mulley has made a fine and soberly thrilling addition to the literature of the undercover war the sort that does not exaggerate or mythologise...This book massively researched and excitingly told, brings an extraordinary heroine back to life." --Daily Mail

"Clare Mulley has marshalled an impressive array of sources in bringing her subject to life...there is much to admire in The Spy Who Loved. Not least that, in spite of the mesmerizing personality of its subject, the temptation to drift into hagiography to which several other biographers of female SOE agents have succumbed is avoided...Clare Mulley has evidently taken Poland s wartime vicissitudes to her heart and, where it was her intention or not, she has rendered Granville s life as an allegory of that nation s travails in the first half of the twentieth century." --Times Literary Supplement

"This is the first book about her for more than 30 years and it painstakingly disentangles her complex story and equally complex character...Clare Mulley has made a fine and soberly thrilling addition to the literature of the undercover war the sort that does not exaggerate or mythologise...This book massively researched and excitingly told, brings an extraordinary heroine back to life." --Daily Mail

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising, but that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, she would become one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated special agents. Having fled to Britain on the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the intelligence services long before the establishment of the SOE, and took on mission after mission. She skied into occupied Poland, served in Egypt and was later parachuted into occupied France. Her quick wit, courage and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and saved the lives of several fellow officers, including one of her many lovers just hours before he was due to be executed by the Gestapo. More importantly, perhaps, the intelligence she smuggled to the British hidden inside her gloves was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort and in recognition of her success she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE and the Croix de Guerre. Charismatic, difficult and fearless, Christine was an extraordinary woman, and exercised a mesmeric power of those who knew her.