Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

New York Times Bestseller! By the author of A Man Called Intrepid . The story of Vera Atkins, legendary spy and holder of the Legion of Honor

She was stunning. She was ruthless. She was brilliant and had a will of iron. Born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Bucharest, she became Vera Atkins. William Stephenson, the spymaster who would later be known as "Intrepid", recruited her when she was twenty-three.

Vera spent most of the 1930s running too many dangerous espionage missions to count. When World War II began in 1939, her many skills made her one of the leaders of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by, and reporting to, Winston Churchill. She trained and recruited hundreds of agents, including dozens of women. Their job was to seamlessly penetrate deep behind the enemy lines.

As General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, the fantastic exploits and extraordinary courage of the SOE agents and the French Resistance fighters "shortened the war by many months." They are celebrated, as they should be.

But Vera Atkins's central role was hidden until after she died; Author William Stevenson promised to wait and publish her story posthumously. Now, Vera Atkins can be celebrated and known for the hero she was: the woman whose beauty, intelligence, and unwavering dedication proved key in turning the tide of World War II.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. xi)
• Terms and Abbreviations (p. xix)
• 1 Max's Daughter (p. 1)
• 2 Mutual Friends vs. Guilty Men (p. 15)
• 3 Kill Hitler? (p. 23)
• 4 Return to Berlin (p. 34)
• 5 Crown or Commoner: Where Lies the Treachery? (p. 38)
• 6 "England Cut Off" (p. 51)
• 7 Connections (p. 59)
• 8 Spattering Brains with a Knobkerrie (p. 68)
• 9 Poland Breaks the First Enigma (p. 76)
• 10 Betrayals All Around (p. 82)
• 11 Vera's First Mission in an Open War (p. 87)
• 12 KBO: Keep Buggering On (p. 99)
• 13 Your Affectionate Opposition: The Gestapo (p. 105)
• 14 The Phony War Ends (p. 110)
• 15 "A Gigantic Guerrilla" (p. 119)
• 16 The Lips of a Strange Woman (p. 124)
• 17 Sabotage Etcetera Etcetera (p. 129)
• 18 A Year Alone (p. 135)
• 19 A Civil War Ends, a Nightmare Begins (p. 145)
• 20 "Specially Employed and Not Paid from Army Funds" (p. 152)
• 21 "She Could Do Anything with Dynamite Except Eat It" (p. 161)
• 22 The Black Chamber (p. 169)
• 23 "She Has to Believe in What She Is Doing or Go Mad" (p. 175)
• 24 The Flying Visit (p. 183)
• 25 Shattering Laval's "Shield of France" (p. 192)
• 26 "We Are in the Presence of a Crime Without a Name" (p. 199)
• 27 "Thin Red Line" (p. 210)
• 28 Fully Occupied (p. 219)
• 29 Bluff and Counterbluff (p. 229)
• 30 The White Rabbit Hops into the "Governor's" Den (p. 237)
• 31 An Unplanned and Gigantic Spyglass (p. 244)
• 32 Rolande (p. 255)
• 33 Tangled Webs (p. 260)
• 34 Deadly Mind and Wireless Games (p. 267)
• 35 "The Life That 1 Have Is Yours" (p. 272)
• 36 "My Uncle Is Lord Vansittart" (p. 287)
• 37 "But If the Cause Be Mot Good ..." (p. 293)
• 38 "If These Do Not Die Well, It Will Be a Black Matter" (p. 297)
• 39 A Terrible Irony (p. 305)
• 40 Unsolved Mysteries (p. 312)
• 41 The American Connection (p. 317)
• Notes (p. 323)
• Index (p. 341)