The Spy who Loved
Clare Mully
(Macmillan, R200)
Johannesburg - This is an extraordinary account of the extraordinary history of an extraordinary woman.
Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek was born in Warsaw in 1908 and died in London as Christine Granville 44 years later. In between she had various other names, not only as a result of craved freedom, activity and the adrenalin rush of danger. She fled Poland at the outbreak of World War II and volunteered her services to British Intelligence. She skied into Poland from Hungary.
After she was identified by the Germans, she served in Egypt and North Africa before being parachuted into occupied France, where she worked with factions of the French Resistance and courageously intervened to save the lives of fellow agents sentenced to death by the Gestapo.
After the war, she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE and the Croix de Guerre, but had great difficulty in reconciling herself to the betrayal of Poland, the wounding behaviour of British bureaucrats and the humdrum routine of daily life.
Having survived incredible dangers in war, she died in peacetime at the hands of a frustrated suitor she had repulsed.
It was obviously no simple matter to write the biography of someone whose career was both shrouded in mystery and enhanced by mythical accretions. To do so, the author consulted scores of people in many countries and trawled private and public archives, including documents to which she gained access only by invoking the British Freedom of Information Act. As befits its subject, the pace is breathless and the reader’s attention never flags.
The Spy who Loved is highly recommended. – John Boje