Nancy Wake: The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spy

Peter FitzSimons

Oct 2011 · Sold by HarperCollins Australia

About this ebook

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spy
In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person.

As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille.

Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her "the white mouse" for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis. Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake's compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.

For fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Name: Lise comes the true story behind the historical fiction novels Code Name Helène and Liberation.

Ratings and reviews

This book was a real page turner. One of the best biographies that I have ever read. Nancy Wake is a remarkable woman! Good on her!

I could not put this book down once I started reading...an amazing true story of an incredible & exciting woman in war-torn Europe. Wow.

Wonderful biography of a strong and talented woman who was determined to do her part in WWII to defeat the Germans.

About the author

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald. He is the author of over twenty-seven books - including biographies of Charles Kingsford Smith, Nancy Wake, Kim Beazley, Nene King, Nick Farr-Jones, Steve Waugh and John Eales - and is one of Australia's biggest selling non-fiction authors of the last fifteen years.