Novelist Ariel Lawhon (Flight of Dreams) writes bold female characters who have a knack for bending the truth: from the three women implicated in the 1930 disappearance of a New York judge (The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress) to a woman who may or may not have been the last surviving Romanov princess (I Was Anastasia). In her fourth novel, Code Name Hélène, Lawhon turns her attention to Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, a scrappy Australian runaway who became a nurse and a journalist (under her own name) and then a spy with Britain's SOE (under several aliases) during World War II. Moving between Nancy's exploits in France toward the end of the war and several other periods in her life, Lawhon spins a captivating narrative of a woman who would stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis and who was as comfortable handling a revolver as her signature red Elizabeth Arden lipstick.
Lawhon's narrative begins in the winter of 1944, as Nancy (hungover but determined) jumps out of a plane into occupied France. She sweeps readers into Nancy's wry, fast-talking, first-person account of her adventures, taking readers deep into the French countryside with Nancy and her compatriots and then flipping back to Paris, where Nancy meets her future husband, Henri Fiocca. Determined not to give him the advantage, Nancy is nevertheless disarmed by Henri's good looks and quiet strength of character. Their love will sustain them throughout the war, as both (especially Nancy) face increasing hardship and danger. Having witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi torture in Vienna before the war, Nancy has a particular vendetta against a Nazi officer called Wolff, but she is intent on three larger aims: providing the French Resistance with arms and supplies, using all means at her disposal to take down the Nazis and taking no guff from any man about her gender.
While Nancy cuts a vivid, stylish figure through the novel's pages, her supporting cast is also well drawn: Henri, her patient husband; Stephanie, Nancy's friend who introduces her to Henri; and Nancy's fellow SOE agents, including her stalwart partner (code name Hubert) and their wryly humorous radio operator, Denis Rake. Their feats of daring and gritty survival tactics are drawn largely from true accounts by Nancy and others, but Lawhon's elegant plotting makes them shine. Known as La Souris Blanche--the White Mouse--for her ability to wriggle out of tight corners, Nancy was anything but mousy. Bold, confident, dryly witty and driven by a strong sense of justice, Nancy (no matter which name she uses) is a fascinating character. Lawhon's gripping narrative gives "Hélène" her due. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Ariel Lawhon's elegant, powerful fourth novel tells the gripping story of socialite spy Nancy Wake during World War II.